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No link between Pfizer coronavirus jab and post-vaccination elderly deaths, EU regulator says
- The European Medicines Agency said the shot is safe for older people
- Dozens of elderly people had died in Norway after receiving a first shot of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine
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The Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus jab has no link to reported post-vaccination deaths and no new side effects, the EU’s medicines regulator said on Friday based on the first data from the vaccine’s roll-out.
The update by the Amsterdam-based European Medicines Agency followed reports that dozens of mainly elderly people had died in Norway and other European countries after receiving a first shot of the vaccine.
The EMA said it had looked at the deaths and “concluded that the data did not show a link to vaccination with Comirnaty (the vaccine) and the cases do not raise a safety concern.”
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In its first safety update since the EU started its vaccination campaign in December, the watchdog said that overall, data “is consistent with the known safety profile of the vaccine, and no new side effects were identified.”
Reports of occasional severe allergic reactions did not go beyond what had already been found about this “known side effect”, it added.
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