Child’s Bruises, Death Days After Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Not Related To Jab: Doctors

KEY POINTS

A boy in Thailand died more than a week after he received his first dose of Pfizer's vaccine
He died from septic arthritis at the knees and septic shock, a laboratory test revealed
Doctors ruled that the 12-year-old's death was not caused by or related to the vaccination

The death of a 12-year-old boy in Thailand following his COVID-19 vaccination was not caused by the jab, health officials said Friday.

The unnamed child, who died on Feb. 3, received his first dose of Pfizer's vaccine on Jan. 25, Thai newspaper The Nation reported, citing Dr. Chawetsan Namwat of the Public Health Ministry’s Department of Disease Control (DDC).

The boy initially displayed no side effects from vaccination, but he later developed a fever and muscle aches after returning home, Chawetsan said.

He then reportedly experienced pain in both of his knees, difficulty in walking and the weakening of his leg muscles by Jan. 28.

Upon being taken to a private hospital, doctors found that the boy had a high fever and black bruises on both of his legs, which he could not move.

"Doctors suspected [sepsis] and decided to send him to Krabi Hospital, where he was treated with antibiotics and intravenous fluid. However, his symptoms did not improve, and he died on Feb. 3," the doctor explained.

A laboratory biopsy revealed that the boy had died from septic arthritis at the knees and septic shock.

Additionally, a post-mortem examination found no signs of infection at the point where the vaccine was administered.

Following the discoveries, doctors ruled that the boy's death was not caused by his COVID-19 jab but by other events that occurred at approximately the same time as the vaccination, a report by The Star said.

It was unclear what those other events were.

Around 2,081 people in Thailand have died after they received their anti-coronavirus shots, according to Chawetsan.

Medical experts investigated around 1,464 of those cases and ruled that 938 of them were not related to the COVID-19 vaccine. Meanwhile, 250 cases were still awaiting additional evidence and 272 were ruled inconclusive, leaving only four fatalities that were related to the vaccines.

Among those four deaths, two were caused by vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia, one from severe allergic reaction and shock, and the last was from Stevens-Johnson syndrome and toxic epidermal necrolysis.

Thailand, which has supposedly administered over 120 million doses of the vaccine since February last year, has reported 2,674,477 COVID-19 cases and 22,565 virus-related deaths, according to data provided by the World Health Organization.