Says this is “no reason to suspend vaccination”
(Eagle News) – The Department of Health (DOH) reported that one of those who received the COVID-19 vaccine had died, but said that this “serious adverse event (was) not connected to the vaccine.”
The death occurred on March 15. The individual “received the COVID-19 vaccine and subsequently tested positive for COVID 19,” noted a DOH statement on Tuesday, March 17.
The DOH, however, did not identify which vaccine was used in the individual who had died.
It said that the regional and national Adverse Event Following Immunization (AEFI) committees had been already “activated to conduct a thorough investigation of the case.”
The DOH said that the investigation done followed the 2019 World Health Organization AEFI causality assessment methodology.
-DOH: Death was caused by COVID-19, and not by vaccine-
Both the National Adverse Event Following Immunization Committee (NAEFIC) and the Regional Adverse Event Following Immunization Committee (RAEFIC), however, “concluded that the cause of the death was caused by COVID-19 itself, not by the COVID-19 vaccine,” the department’s statement read.
“COVID-19 vaccines cannot cause COVID-19,” it noted.
The DOH and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) emphasized “that vaccines are only one part of the solution in bringing the COVID-19 pandemic to an end.”
“Even with vaccines, people must continue with the important prevention measures already in place: wearing masks, maintaining physical distancing, washing hands frequently, and avoiding crowded places and settings,” the DOH statement said.
–DOH encourages all health workers to still get vaccinated-
Still, the DOH and FDA are both encouraging “all health workers to get vaccinated especially now that we are seeing a surge in COVID 19 cases.”
“Millions of people around the world have received this vaccine, and evidence continues to show that the benefit of vaccination outweighs the risk of severe disease and death caused by COVID-19,” the DOH said without identifying the vaccine.
This came about amid controversies surrounding the AstraZeneca vaccines, the use of which had been suspended in several countries in Europe following reports of blood clots among those who had been given the vaccine.
More recently, in the northern Italian region of Piedmont, some 393,600 shots of the AstraZeneca vaccine included in a batch were seized after a man died hours after he had received the jab.
The World Health Organization (WHO), however, said that there is no evidence yet that would show that AstraZeneca vaccine use caused the reported blood clots.
Experts at both the WHO and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) had met on Tuesday to discuss the AstraZeneca vaccine, with the European organization expected to publish conclusions Thursday.
The Philippines has so far only used China’s Sinovac vaccines and AstraZeneca vaccines in its jab rollout that started on March 1.
The DOH said that around 216,000 health care workers had already been vaccinated.
(Eagle News Service)