Cancer jab 'unlikely' to have killed schoolgirl

Wed Sep 30 2009 12:15:30

A 14-year-old girl who died shortly after being given a cervical cancer vaccine had a serious underlying medical condition.

Natalie Morton collapsed at Coventry's Blue Coat Church of England School and died in hospital.

Preliminary results from post-mortem tests indicated it was "most unlikely" the HPV jab caused her death.

The teenager apparently suffered a "rare but extreme reaction" after being given the injection, with a number of other girls also suffering dizziness and nausea and being sent home.

An "urgent" investigation was launched following the pupil's death in hospital and the batch of Cervarix allocated to the school was quarantined as a "precautionary measure".

The HPV vaccine protects against two strains of human papillomavirus that cause more than 70 per cent of cases of cervical cancer in women.

The NHS started the immunisation programme in September last year, offering vaccines to girls aged 12 and 13, and to 17 and 18-year-old girls.

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