Late-stage studies of a possible COVID-19 vaccine are on temporary hold while the company investigates whether a report of a patient with a serious side effect is linked to the shot. AstraZeneca didn't reveal any information about the possible side effect except to call it "a potentially unexplained illness." The news site STAT first reported the pause in testing, saying the possible side effect occurred in the United Kingdom. Late last month, AstraZeneca began recruiting 30,000 people in the U.S. for its largest study of the vaccine. But public fears that a vaccine is unsafe or ineffective could be disastrous, derailing the effort to vaccinate millions of Americans.

Source: CBC News September 08, 2020 23:35 UTC