UK's NICE has announced plans to develop a guideline on the management and follow up of blood clots and low platelet counts resulting from COVID-19 vaccination.

Vaccine-induced immune thrombocytopenia and thrombosis (VITT) − immune-driven blood clots (thrombosis) and low platelet counts (thrombocytopenia) − is extremely rare (only 14.2 cases per million doses of COVID-19 vaccine) but can be very serious and requires swift diagnosis an urgent treatment.

There is currently no national guideline for VITT; NICE's guideline will work with an expert panel to review the evidence for identifying and managing the syndrome in order to collate the best current knowledge to support clinicians.

Commenting on the announcement, Director of the Centre for Guidelines at NICE, Dr Paul Chrisp, said "this guideline is not looking at the safety of COVID-19 vaccines; that is not NICE's remit and the data from MHRAFootnote 1 overwhelmingly shows the vaccines are safe. NICE's role here is to provide the best advice to help clinicians treat patients in the rare instances where they do develop VITT."

The guideline is expected to be published at the end of July 2021, and will be continuously updated to incorporate the latest evidence and keep abreast of new developments.