A Moroccan court has issued an “unprecedented” ruling to compensate a woman after suffering complications from receiving a dose of an AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine.
Dr. Najat Touati, a researcher at Ibn Tufail University, filed a lawsuit against the Ministry of Health and Social Protection, demanding compensation for the damages she suffered after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine, accusing the vaccine of causing paralysis in the face and lower limbs.
In an unprecedented decision, the Rabat Administrative Court awarded her compensation of 250,000 Moroccan dirhams, equivalent to 25,000 US dollars.
Commenting on the case, government spokesman Mustapha Paytas said that “all vaccines approved in Morocco can only be used after they are approved by scientific committees.”
AstraZeneca announced on Tuesday that it had begun withdrawing its COVID-19 vaccine from around the world, due to the “surplus of updated vaccines available” since the outbreak of the pandemic, it claimed.
The company’s move to withdraw the meeting comes in conjunction with the British judiciary’s consideration of a series of lawsuits filed by citizens who were affected after taking the vaccine, which prompted the company to admit the emergence of side effects that may be serious for a percentage of vaccine recipients.
Morocco is the second most migrant-exporting African country after Egypt