Prognosis

AstraZeneca Must Explain Spinal Ailment to Resume Vaccine Trial

CEO says there has been no diagnosis of sickened patient
Top U.S. health official points to ‘spinal cord problem’

Watch: National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins says AstraZeneca Plc’s Covid-19 vaccine trial had been halted due to a "spinal cord problem." (Source: ABC/Bloomberg)

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By Robert Langreth and Riley Griffin

September 9, 2020 at 4:32 PM UTC

Updated on

September 9, 2020 at 9:09 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

A day after pausing its Covid-19 vaccine trials due to a possible serious neurological problem in one patient, AstraZeneca Plc faced numerous questions about what exactly caused the issue and whether it could be related to the vaccine.

On Tuesday, AstraZeneca and its partner, the University of Oxford, confirmed it had stopped giving patients the experimental shot after a person in the U.K. who was participating in one of their studies got sick, triggering a review of safety data.