3 health workers receive the AstraZeneca vaccine, hospitalized in Norway

Three Norwegian health workers who recently received the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine are being treated in hospital for bleeding, blood clots and low blood platelet counts, Norwegian health officials said on Saturday. following a similar initiative from Denmark. Iceland then followed suit. “We don’t know if the cases are related to the vaccine,” Sigurd Hortemo, chief medical officer of the Norwegian Medicines Agency, said at a press conference jointly organized with the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. “They have very unusual symptoms: bleeding, blood clots and a low blood platelet count,” said Steinar Madsen, medical director of the Norwegian Medicines Agency. “They are quite sick … We take this very seriously,” he said, adding that authorities received notification of the cases on Saturday.

AstraZeneca was not immediately available for comment. Europe is struggling to speed up a vaccine rollout after delays in deliveries from Pfizer and AstraZeneca, even as a spike in cases amid a more contagious virus variant has triggered new lockdowns in countries like the ‘Italy and France.