The World Health Organization held media briefing on Covid-19 on March 22. Mariangela Simao, Assistant Director General of WHO answered the question about the fatal case of Megi Bakradze, a 27-year-old Georgian nurse, who developed complications 30 minutes after receiving Covid AstraZeneca vaccine, and died.

“Unfortunately, very bad news about the nurse passing away, this is regrettable. We did have a very extensive review of all the deaths that occurred allegedly related to the vaccine. We also had the review about presence of what we call the incidence of different coagulations and related disorders in people who received the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Not only the WHO but the European Medicines Agency has done a complete look at all patients’ records, all the available evidence. It concluded that the link to very severe, rare events – and we are talking about one in a million or maybe two – can possibly be linked to vaccination. The conclusion was that the risk of Covid infection itself that has killed more than 2.6 million people globally is much higher.

So what we say that the benefit of the vaccine outweighs the normal risk, any risk that may rise from a potential side effect. We are happy to support the Georgian office, Georgian regulators, through a panel discussion, with the public in general to reboot trust and confidence in the vaccine. The vaccine is good. There is plenty of evidence that is has very good cost benefit in relation to preventing deaths from Covid,” Mariangela Simao said.

The young woman developed an allergic reaction to the COVID-19 AstraZeneca vaccine on March 18 and fell into a coma. The nurse was transported to Tbilisi following an anaphylactic reaction to the COVID-19 vaccine 30 minutes after the AstraZeneca shot. She died at the First University Clinic on March 19.