Italian medicine agency AIFA Thursday said it has banned the use of a batch of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine after the death of a serviceman.
The Italian news agency ANSA said the serviceman died in Sicily.
ANSA reported that AIFA banned doses from the ABV2856 batch being given as a precautionary measure after reports of “serious adverse events”.
It stressed that there was no proof of a link between the vaccine being given and these events.
Stefano Paternò, a member of the Italian Navy serving at Augusta in Sicily, died early on Wednesday of a heart attack at his home, the sources said.
The previous day he had had the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine from the banned batch, ANSA reported.
Prosecutors have opened a probe and have placed around 10 people under investigation on suspicion of manslaughter.
They include people involved in the distribution of the vaccine and the health personnel who gave the jab.
Also, Norway’s health authorities said Thursday they were suspending the use of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine as a precaution following Denmark’s decision to do so over fears of a link to blood clots.
“We are pausing the AstraZeneca vaccination in Norway,” the director of infection prevention and control at the National Institute of Health, Geir Bukholm, told reporters.
“We are waiting for more information to see if there is a link between the vaccine and this blood clot case,” he said.
Danish health authorities said on March 11, 2021 they were temporarily suspending the use of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine as a precaution after some patients developed blood clots since receiving the jab. The move comes “following reports of serious cases of blood clots among people vaccinated with AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine”, the Danish Health Authority said.
