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French family files case over woman’s death after AstraZeneca jab

The family of a French woman who died of a blood clot at the age of 38 after receiving the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine has filed a complaint with prosecutors, a lawyer said on Friday.

Published: 3 April 2021 12:16 CEST
French family files case over woman's death after AstraZeneca jab
A family has filed a complaint over a French woman's death. Photo: LOIC VENANCE / AFP

The complaint was filed “against X” – not targeting any individual or entity at this stage – a practice allowed in France when the circumstances of a case are still unclear.

The aim of filing the complaint with prosecutors in the south-west city of Toulouse is to “obtain an investigation”, the French family’s lawyer Etienne Boittin told AFP.

“It is a complaint ‘against X’, because we have no element against a named person for manslaughter,” said Boittin, adding that this “classification can evolve” as the case develops.

The family of the woman, a social worker, “is not in a process of claiming or seeking responsibilities but simply wants explanations and clarifications on what happened,” he added.

The woman – who was vaccinated in mid-March due to her work at a centre with disabled people – did not suffer from any particular health problem, added Boittin.

Her health deteriorated shortly after vaccination and she was hospitalised. She died on March 29 of a blood clot on the brain.

“The objective of this complaint is to obtain an additional investigation – in particular an autopsy within a medico-legal framework – so we can know if this vaccine could have had a causal role in her death”, added the lawyer.

READ ALSO: Europe’s slow vaccine rollout is ‘prolonging the pandemic’ as infections surge

France and several other European countries resumed AstraZeneca vaccinations last month after briefly suspending the product over reports of blood clots in a small number of people who had the jab.

The French medicines regulator recommends the vaccine for those aged 55 and over after reports of blood clots in younger people.

The vaccine commission in neighbouring Germany said this week it recommended use of the jab only for people 60 and over.

The vaccine has been backed by the World Health Organisation and the EU’s drugs regulator, which have said there was no evidence of a link to an increased risk of blood clots.

READ ALSO: AstraZeneca vaccine ‘safe and effective’ against Covid-19, European Medicines Agency concludes

The same lawyer is also representing the family of a French medical student who died days after he received AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine in the western city of Nantes.

Prosecutors have opened an investigation into that case while emphasising that no link had been established yet with the jab.
   

Member comments

  1. This is just bad luck, don’t do so difficult, we accept that a few healthy people wil ‘give’ their lives for the greater good. That’s what they tell us!
    I am happy to see more written about those poor women, who were very unlikely to have died of covid themselves. Oh a very small risk, until it is your mother, colleague, friend. I do not find this acceptable, it’s not one or two cases, by now quite a few and they won’t be last.
    Do not forget this is a short term side effect, what will be the long term ones? just wondering……..

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HEALTH

France’s Covid-19 app to be ‘put to sleep’

France's Covid-tracker app, used for months for the all-important 'health pass' will be switched off today, health officials have confirmed.

Published: 30 June 2023 13:29 CEST
France’s Covid-19 app to be 'put to sleep'

Covid-19 screening in France reaches an important milestone on Friday, June 30th, 2023 – when the TousAntiCovid app is officially ‘put to sleep’.

The app, which was launched in June 2020 as France came out of its first lockdown of the pandemic and has undergone a number of iterations, including as a delivery device for the health pass, will be switched off. 

For most people, this anniversary will pass without mention. Few people have consulted the app in recent months, and it has sat dormant on many smartphones since France’s Covid-19 health pass requirement was suspended in March 2022.

Meanwhile, the Système d’Informations de DEPistage (SI-DEP) interface – which has been informing people about their test results since the Spring of 2020 – is also being shut down on June 30th, as per legal requirements.

The SI-DEP shutdown means that it will also be impossible to retrieve Covid test certificates issued before June 30th, should the need arise. All data held by the database will be “destroyed”, officials have said.

It has handled more than 320 million antigen and PCR tests since it was introduced.

This does not mean that testing for Covid-19 has stopped, or is now unnecessary. As reported recently, more than 1,000 deaths a week in Europe are still caused by the virus.

The shutdown of the national information system does not mean that people in France cannot still book an appointment for an antigen test at a pharmacy, or a PCR test at a laboratory. But the number of people going for testing is declining rapidly. In recent days, according to Le Parisien, just 15,000 people in France took a Covid test – the lowest number, it said, since the pandemic started.

Reimbursement rules for testing changed on March 1st, with only certain categories of people – minors, those aged 65 and over, or immunosuppressed patients – covered for the entire cost of testing.

From Friday, only PCR test results will be transmitted to authorities for data purposes, meaning pharmacists that only offer antigen testing will be locked out of the online interface to record test results.

The reason for the shift in priorities is to maintain “minimal epidemiological surveillance”, the Ministry of Health has reportedly told scientists.

As a result test certificates, showing a positive or negative result, will no longer be issued from July 1st. Since February 1st, anyone taking a test has had to give consent to share their data in order to obtain a certificate. 

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