The European Medicines Agency says it remains convinced the benefits of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine outweigh risks.

However EMA director Emer Cooke says the EU drug watchdog cannot definitely rule out a like between the vaccine and blood clots as it investigates 30 cases of a rare blood clotting condition.

Cooke adds the ”clear” conclusion of the review is that the benefits outweigh possible risks, calling AstraZeneca’s product ”safe and effective.”

The EMA stresses the vaccine is not associated with an increase in the ”overall risk” of blood clots.

But Cooke says the agency is amending the warning label on the product because there is not yet conclusive evidence of what role the vaccine might have played either in blood clots that developed in the brains of 18 people or tiny clots that developed in veins of seven others.

She points out those were out of more than 20-million who received the AstraZeneca vaccine.