Quebec reports blood clot death

• A 54-year-old woman has died of a blood clot that occurred after receiving the Oxford-astrazeneca vaccine, the Quebec government announced Tuesday.

Public health director Dr. Horacio Arruda told a news conference he believes it is the first death in Canada to be potentially linked to the vaccine.

Both Arruda and Health Minister Christian Dubé said the government had always known side-effects could occur in a very small number of people but stressed that the vaccine saves far more lives than it endangers.

Premier François Legault offered condolences to the victim’s family. “I’m sad to know that a 54-year-old woman, in good shape, died because she was vaccinated,” Legault said in Quebec City. He called the news “hard to take” but said it was not unexpected.

“We had an experience elsewhere in the world where we said: there is a risk once out of 100,000,” he said.

But the optimism over declining case counts was overshadowed by news of the woman’s death.

Dubé said the province is investigating four cases of serious complications out of some 400,000 people who have received the Astrazeneca vaccine. That puts the rate of complications at about one in 100,000 doses, which he said is consistent with what has been observed elsewhere.

The clotting syndrome has been labelled VIPIT, short for vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia. It occurs when the body’s immune system begins to attack blood platelets, leading to clots, and it is treatable.