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University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE): The child is examined in forensic medicine
Photo: Hanno Bode / IMAGO
In some media and on social media, the news has been around for a few hours: A twelve-year-old boy from the Cuxhaven district has died.
Two days earlier he had received his second corona vaccination.
It is still unclear whether the vaccination was the reason for the death.
Forensic medicine at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) autopsied the child in order to examine a connection between death and the vaccination.
However, the results of the autopsy have not yet been fully evaluated.
According to the institute, this will likely take some time.
The district of Cuxhaven decided on Wednesday to make the case public after rumors had surfaced on social media.
The child died a few days ago "in close temporal connection with a vaccination against the coronavirus," according to the press release.
The boy had previous illnesses that were not specified in more detail in the message or on SPIEGEL's request from the Cuxhaven district.
The Paul Ehrlich Institute (PEI), which is responsible for the monitoring of pharmaceuticals in Germany, states that the twelve-year-old suffered from serious previous illnesses, including previous cardiovascular diseases (affecting the heart and blood vessels).
The institute was informed and in contact with the responsible health department.
So far, the cause of death and the question of whether the Covid 19 vaccination could be related to it are unclear.
There were still no further fine-tissue examinations that could provide valuable information.
"Cause of death unclear"
"Since the vaccination was only given two days before the child's death, we could not rule out the possibility that there was a connection," said a spokeswoman for the Cuxhaven district when asked by SPIEGEL. If the doctor present states "cause of death unexplained" on the death certificate, the case will be forwarded directly to the criminal police. This would have reported the incident to the district. Due to the temporal connection, the district health department commissioned the autopsy of the body.
The preliminary autopsy protocol, which the district says it already has, suggests that the child died as a result of the vaccination.
With a view to the child's previous illnesses, however, according to the Forensic Medicine Institute, a possible other cause cannot be completely ruled out before the tissue examinations are evaluated.
Contrary to several reports, UKE forensic medicine will not comment on the case for the time being - at least not this week, said a spokeswoman when asked by SPIEGEL.
The examinations would probably still take, and the full autopsy report would not be published.
Previous illnesses unknown
The district's press release does not disclose which vaccine the boy was vaccinated with. Several media unanimously report that it was the Biontech / Pfizer agent. In Europe, the two mRNA vaccines from the companies Biontech / Pfizer and Moderna are approved for the age group 12 to 17. However, the vaccine from Biontech / Pfizer is inoculated much more frequently. It is therefore obvious that the deceased child was also vaccinated with it.
It is known that vaccination reactions and, in very rare cases, severe side effects can occur after a corona vaccination.
In most cases, however, these are harmless.
In the summer there were several incidents after vaccination with mRNA vaccines.
Some young people, especially young men, had developed what is known as myocarditis after the vaccination.
In the majority of cases, the patients with these myocarditis had to be treated in hospital, but had an uncomplicated course under the appropriate medical care.
Younger people are more likely to have vaccine reactions than older people
According to the current safety report from the Paul Ehrlich Institute, the Biontech vaccine Comirnaty had been inoculated around 82 million times in Germany by the end of September.
Of these, around 13,000 suspected serious side effects were reported.
1.3 percent of the people vaccinated with Comirnaty had a death related to the vaccination.
In around 33 percent of the reported cases, the previous general condition had been restored at the time of reporting.
On the PEI website, anyone who has been vaccinated against the coronavirus can state possible vaccination reactions and side effects, which are then recorded statistically.
Cases reported by the health authorities are also included.
For 12 to 17-year-olds, the corona vaccination was only recommended by Stiko on August 19, around 42 percent of this age group are already fully vaccinated.
Whether there are more serious side effects in children and adolescents than in adults, the data situation after three months is still too small, said a spokeswoman for the PEI in response to a request from SPIEGEL.
The reporting rate is higher, but that could also be due to the fact that younger people report more and more frequently about vaccination reactions than older people.
This is because the immune system of younger people usually reacts a little more strongly to the vaccination (read more about this here).
So far five deaths among children and adolescents
The safety report provides a detailed breakdown of the frequency of vaccination reactions in children and adolescents. According to this, a total of around 1,800 suspected cases of at least one vaccination reaction in 12 to 17-year-olds had been reported by the end of September. The Comirnaty vaccine (Biontech / Pfizer) was vaccinated in 1,744 cases and the Spikevax vaccine (Moderna) in 26 cases. The most common reports reported were injection site pain, headache, fatigue and fever, the same vaccination responses as adults. Around 22 percent of the suspected cases reported therefore described serious adverse reactions.
In five of the reported cases there was a fatal outcome within two to 24 days after vaccination with Comirnaty.
The PEI shows that the five deaths were a 16-year-old female and four teenage males (12, 14, 15 and 16 years old).
The 16-year-old died in connection with an arrhythmia, a cardiac arrhythmia.
Three of the male adolescents had serious previous illnesses, but the causal connection with the vaccination could not be assessed, the symptoms and the course of the disease were different and had no clinical features in common.
In the case of a twelve-year-old boy, very little, overall inadequate information on the course and the circumstances of death is known.
The case of the deceased twelve-year-old is not the first to be chronologically related to the vaccination.
However, it is the first to be widely taken up by the media or private individuals on social media platforms.
However, speculation and rumors are out of place at this point.
"We are confronted with a particularly tragic case here," says the head of the health department, Kai Dehne, according to the press release.
“Statistically, serious vaccine side effects resulting in death occur extremely rarely, but the affected family is one hundred percent ruthless.
My deepest sympathy goes to the relatives. "
Collaboration: Jean-Pierre Ziegler
