Prosecutors in the northern Italian region of Piedmont said on Monday they had seized a batch of 393,600 shots of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine following the death of a man hours after he had received a jab. The move represents another blow to the image of the AstraZeneca vaccine in Italy and will further hinder the government’s anti-coronavirus inoculation campaign. Read MoreMagistrates in Sicily ordered the seizure of a separate batch of AstraZeneca vaccine last week following the sudden deaths of two men who had recently been inoculated. Italy's medicines regulator has now announced a precautionary, temporary suspension of the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine. Ireland, Germany, France, Denmark, Norway and Iceland have all suspended use of the vaccine following blot-clotting issues, some of them fatal, in people who had used it.

Source: Irish Independent March 15, 2021 17:37 UTC