It's highly unlikely that a cervical cancer vaccine caused the death of a 14-year-old girl, a British health official said Tuesday.
Natalie Morton died in hospital Monday a few hours after she received an injection of the Cervarix vaccine, which protects against the virus that causes cervical cancer. Morton appeared healthy before the shot and her death sparked a wave of concern across the U.K.
But it appears she had a "serious underlying medical condition which was likely to have caused death," Caron Grainger, the director for public health at Coventry City Council, said in a statement, the Associated Press reported.
"We are awaiting further test results which will take some time. However, indications are that it was most unlikely that the .... vaccination was the cause of death," Grainger said.
Cervarix isn't approved in the United States. A U.S. Food and Drug Administration decision about whether to approve Cervarix was expected Tuesday but was delayed because the agency decided to extend its review of the vaccine. The death in Britain didn't influence that decision, according to Cervarix maker GlaxoSmithKline.