Austria Suspends Use of AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine Batch After Death

A vial of Astra Zeneca coronavirus vaccine is seen at a vaccination centre in Westfield Stratford City shopping centre, amid the outbreak of CCP virus disease (COVID-19), in London, on Feb. 18, 2021. Henry Nicholls/Reuters

ZURICH—Austrian authorities have suspended inoculations with a batch of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine as a precaution while investigating the death of one person and the illness of another after the shots, a health agency said on March 7.

“The Federal Office for Safety in Health Care (BASG) has received two reports in a temporal connection with a vaccination from the same batch of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the district clinic of Zwettl” in Lower Austria province, it said.