US federal health agencies on Tuesday recommended pausing the use of Johnson & Johnson‘s COVID-19 vaccine for at least a few days after six women under age 50 developed rare blood clots after receiving the shot, dealing a fresh setback to efforts to tackle the pandemic. Johnson & Johnson said it would delay the rollout of the vaccine to Europe, a week after regulators there said they were reviewing rare blood clots in four recipients of the shot in the United States. South Africa also suspended the use of J&J’s vaccine.

Acting U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Janet Woodcock said the agency expected the pause to be a matter of days and was aimed at providing information to healthcare providers on how to diagnose and treat the clots. The moves come after European regulators said earlier this month, they had found a possible link between AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine and a similar rare blood clotting problem that led to a small number of deaths.

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FDA official Peter Marks said it was ‘plainly obvious’ the J&J cases were ‘very similar’ to the AstraZeneca ones. He said there had been no similar blood clot cases reported among recipients of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines, which use different technology and accounted for the vast majority of U.S. vaccinations so far. But J&J’s single-dose shot and AstraZeneca’s low-cost vaccine are seen as vital weapons in the fight against a pandemic that has claimed more than three million lives.