AstraZeneca: Macron ‘was wrong’ about vaccine says expert
The medical student was found dead in his apartment on Thursday, March 18, by the firefighters after an alert from his family. The police found a document certifying the student had received the Anglo-Swedish vaccine on March 8. The Nantes prosecutor’s office opened an investigation into the causes of death and ordered an autopsy.
The report mentions “internal bleeding caused by thrombosis”, according to a source close to the file who spoke to Ouest France, as reported by French daily Le Figaro.
The National Agency for the Safety of Medicines (ANSM) said the case was under “clinical investigation”.
A spokesman added: “At this stage, there is nothing to make the link between death and vaccination.
“This case of death is the subject of an in-depth clinical investigation by the regional pharmacovigilance centres.”
AstraZeneca vaccine: Emmanuel Macron has been urged to suspend the jab again (Image: PA)
Emmanuel Macron lifted the suspension of AstraZeneca last week (Image: GETTY)
More than a dozen EU countries, including France, suspended the Oxford jab last week after reported cases of blood clots as one of the side effects.
After an investigation by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which ruled out the link between most thromboses and vaccination with AstraZeneca, the suspension was lifted.
Now the leader of Les Patriotes in France urging President Macron to suspend the vaccine again.
Florian Philippot blasted: “Suspicious death in Nantes of a student: France must suspend #AstraZeneca and also investigate other vaccines!
READ MORE: EU chaos: Spain restricts AstraZeneca jab to under 65s only
“Like Finland, which recently suspended, like the Nordic countries, which are waiting for serious expertise.
“Health before their money!”
The Anglo-Swedish jab providers were also forced to defend themselves today after US authorities suggested some of their data on trials results may not be the most up to date.
The firm said figures released on Monday showing the jab was 79 percent effective against coronavirus and 100 percent effective against severe disease was stood up in all of the data it has looked at.
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Coronavirus vaccine doses administered in the world as of March 22 (Image: EXPRESS)
It comes as US federal health officials said results from the US-led trial may have used “outdated information”.
The US Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) said in a statement that it was concerned that AstraZeneca may have provided an incomplete view of the efficacy data.
But AstraZeneca said: “The numbers published yesterday were based on a pre-specified interim analysis with a data cut-off of February 17.
“We have reviewed the preliminary assessment of the primary analysis and the results were consistent with the interim analysis.
AstraZeneca: Florian Philippot says the vaccine must be investigated (Image: GETTY)
“We are now completing the validation of the statistical analysis.
“We will immediately engage with the DSMB to share our primary analysis with the most up-to-date efficacy data.
“We intend to issue results of the primary analysis within 48 hours.”
The vaccine, which has been the subject of controversy in Europe over concerns about links to very rare blood clots, was found to be 100 percent effective at keeping people out of hospital with severe illness.
Some 32,449 people across all age groups took part in the phase three trial in the US, Chile and Peru, with a total of 141 cases of symptomatic COVID-19 reported.
The results showed that among people aged 65 and over, there was 80 percent protection against developing COVID-19.
The degree of effectiveness against symptomatic COVID-19 was even higher than observed in the Oxford-led clinical trials.
AstraZeneca hopes the jab will protect against severe disease from all coronavirus variants.
