OREANDA-NEWS. The Indonesian Ministry of Health has decided to suspend the distribution of about 450,000 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine after the fatality of one of the patients 11 days after vaccination. It is reported by the local newspaper Jakarta Globe.

According to the newspaper, a 22-year-old man was vaccinated with AstraZeneca on May 5. According to his family, the man started having headaches, fever and muscle pain. One day later, his symptoms worsened and he was taken to hospital, where he later died.

After the death of the young man, the country's Ministry of Health ordered that the remaining vaccines from the received batch be sent to the local regulatory authority to test the drug for toxicity and sterility. The decision was reportedly made on Sunday.

This is a batch of CTMAV547 from AstraZeneca, received by the country under the international COVAX mechanism. According to the ministry, 448,480 doses remain from this batch so far. Most of the drug was used to vaccinate members of the Indonesian armed forces, as well as public and private sector workers in Jakarta and North Sulawesi, the agency said.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Health said in this regard: "We have not suspended the distribution of all batches of AstraZeneca. This is only one batch of CTMAV547." According to him, the verification on this issue can take from one to two weeks. He added that other lots of AstraZeneca vaccine are safe to use.