The Italian investigative authorities are conducting a comprehensive study of the circumstances associated with the death of several citizens who had previously been vaccinated against coronavirus infection with a drug from the British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, Sicilian media reported.
Three deaths shortly after vaccination were recently recorded in Sicily. The first concerns the death of 43-year-old naval officer Stefano Paterno, who died of cardiac arrest the day after vaccination. The prosecutor’s office of the city of Syracuse opened an investigation into the death of a man, in which about ten people appear as suspects, including representatives of the AstraZeneca company and paramedics of the military hospital where Paterno was injected.
The second case is being investigated by the Catania prosecutor’s office. It is about the death of 50-year-old police officer Davide Villa. He passed away 13 days ago after the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. According to journalists, there are no suspects in this investigation.
In turn, the Trapani prosecutor’s office is studying the circumstances of the death of the 54-year-old carabinieri Giuseppe Maniscalco, who died of a heart attack two days after the injection of an antiviral drug. At the autopsy, experts ruled out any connection between the two events, but investigators have already ordered additional histological studies.
All three Italians died shortly after they received shots of the so-called Oxford vaccine from batch ABV2856, supplied to the Apennines from AstraZeneca, media reported.
On Thursday, the Italian Medicines Agency (Aifa) said it has banned doses from the batch of vaccine “as a precautionary measure” in the country pending clarification. At the same time, the Italian regulator indicated that the ban was introduced after “reports of some serious side effects coinciding with the introduction of doses of the drug from the ABV2856 batch”.
Local media also became aware of the death of a 58-year-old school worker from Naples, who was vaccinated, but the dose of the drug administered to him did not come from the above batch. The prosecutor’s office of the city of Nola, which is engaged in this case, decided to confiscate the medical documents of the deceased and not yet bury him.
Aifa is conducting its own investigation into this matter. Representatives of the agency, in particular, said that the doses from the batch ABV2856 will be sent for research to the Higher Institute of Health of Italy.
Earlier, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced that it is investigating incidents with patients who received the AstraZeneca vaccine in several EU countries and who later had thromboembolic complications. According to an EMA spokesman, there is no indication yet that this particular vaccine could cause such conditions. According to the European regulator, the ratio of thromboembolism in vaccinated AstraZeneca does not exceed that in the rest of the population.
Recently, EU countries have received another large batch of Oxford vaccine from AstraZeneca, in particular, a batch of ABV5300 has been shipped to 17 countries. The authorities in Austria, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Luxembourg decided to suspend the use of doses from this consignment as a precautionary measure. The authorities in Italy and Romania made a similar decision regarding doses from the ABV2856 batch.
The AstraZeneca vaccine has been actively used in Italy since February. First of all, such vaccinations are given to teachers and school attendants, military personnel and law enforcement officers, as well as penitentiary workers and prisoners.
The Italian authorities have set the task of vaccinating at least 70% of the population and achieving the formation of collective immunity by the fall. More than 6.2 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been distributed across the country as of Friday, according to the Ministry of Health. Almost 1.5 million of these are doses of AstraZeneca.