The Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus jab has no link to reported post-vaccination deaths and no new side effects, the European Union's (EU) medicines regulator said based on the first data from the vaccine's rollout, AFP reports.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said it had looked at the deaths, including a number in the elderly, and “concluded that the data did not show a link to vaccination with Comirnaty [the vaccine] and the cases do not raise a safety concern.”

In its first safety update since the EU started its vaccination campaign in December, the Amsterdam-based EMA said that data “is consistent with the known safety profile of the vaccine, and no new side effects were identified”.