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(Adds details of vaccine pause, background)
May 5 (Reuters) - The Canadian province of Alberta reported
its first death of a patient from a rare blood clot condition
after receiving the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, its
chief medical officer said.
Canada has reported at least five cases of blood clots
following immunization with the vaccine, but public health
officials maintain the benefits of the AstraZeneca shot outweigh
the potential risks.
The Alberta case, of a woman in her 50s, marks the second
case of blood clots, and the only death after more than 253,000
doses of AstraZeneca were administered in the province,
Alberta's chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw said
in a statement on Tuesday.
"While any death is tragic, it is important to remember that
the risks of dying or suffering other severe outcomes from
COVID-19 remain far greater than the risk following AstraZeneca
vaccine," Hinshaw said.
AstraZeneca did not immediately respond to Reuters' request
for a comment.
Canada has had 1,243,242 confirmed coronavirus cases and
24,342 deaths, according to a Reuters tally
Last month, the province of Quebec reported Canada's first
death of a patient after receiving the AstraZeneca COVID-19
vaccine.
AstraZeneca, working with the vaccine's inventor Oxford
University, was one of the leaders in the global race to develop
a COVID-19 vaccine. Its cheap and easily transportable shot was
hailed as a milestone in the fight against the crisis, but has
since faced a series of setbacks.
The rare complication, which some regulators including
Health Canada are calling Vaccine-Induced Prothrombotic Immune
Thrombocytopenia, involves blood clots accompanied by a low
count of platelets, cells in the blood that help it to clot.
Dozens of countries paused the use of the AstraZeneca
vaccine in March after reports of rare, but serious, blood
clots. Several of them have now resumed use either fully or with
restricions after health regulators said the benefits of the
shot outweigh any risks.
(Reporting by Vishwadha Chander and Sabahatjahan Contractor in
Bengaluru, Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Angus MacSwan)
