While stressing it did not see a link to the vaccination, the Health Ministry said Monday it was investigating the death of a 75-year-old man with serious health problems who died at home hours after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.
The man received the injection of the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine at 8:30 a.m. Monday morning in his northern hometown of Beit She’an. After waiting an obligatory half an hour at the medical clinic, he was released home, saying he felt fine. Some time after getting home, he lost consciousness and was later pronounced dead as a result of heart failure.
The Health Ministry said a preliminary investigation indicated the death did not appear to be connected to the shot. The man suffered from heart disease and cancer, and had suffered a number of previous heart attacks, the ministry said.
The man’s family also asked not to link his death to the vaccine, Hebrew media reported.
Ministry director general Chezy Levy nonetheless announced the formation of a committee of inquiry to investigate the incident.
The Pfizer vaccine is not made with the coronavirus itself, meaning that there is no chance anyone could catch it from the shots. Instead, the vaccine contains a piece of genetic code that trains the immune system to recognize the spiked protein on the surface of the virus.
No major safety issues were uncovered in trials of the shot and only common vaccine-related side effects like fever, fatigue and injection site pain were found.
The Health Ministry on Monday announced a new daily record in coronavirus vaccination numbers, with 98,916 shots administered the previous day, a week after Israel began its inoculation campaign. The total number of inoculations in the country stood at 379,000.
Israel currently ranks first globally in vaccinations per capita, slightly ahead of Bahrain and quite significantly ahead of other world countries, according to the University of Oxford-run Our World in Data.
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