Three people in Norway treated for ‘unusual symptoms’ after AstraZeneca COVID-19 injections

OSLO (Reuters) – Three health workers in Norway who had 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.

Norway on Thursday halted the deployment of the AstraZeneca vaccine, following a similar move from Denmark. Iceland then followed suit.

“We don’t know if the cases are related to the vaccine,” said Sigurd Hortemo, chief medical officer of the Norwegian Medicines Agency, at a press conference jointly organized with the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.

All three individuals were under 50 years old.

The European medicines regulator, the European Medicines Agency (EMA), would investigate the three incidents, Hortemo said.

“They have very unusual symptoms: bleeding, blood clots and low blood platelets,” Steinar Madsen, medical director of the Norwegian Medicines Agency, told NRK.

“They are quite sick … We take this very seriously,” he said, adding that authorities received notification of the cases on Saturday.

AstraZeneca said an analysis of its safety data covering reported cases of more than 17 million vaccine doses administered showed no evidence of an increased risk of pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis or thrombocytopenia – having low platelet counts.

“In fact, the reported number of these types of events for the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is no greater than the number that would have occurred naturally in the unvaccinated population,” a company spokesperson said.

Such trends or patterns were also not seen in clinical trials of the vaccine, she added.

Before Denmark and Norway halt their AstraZeneca vaccine rollout, Austria stopped using a vaccine batch while investigating death from bleeding disorders and disease from pulmonary embolism.

The EMA said on Thursday that the benefits of the vaccine outweighed its risks and it could continue to be given.

Europe is struggling to speed up a vaccine rollout after delays in deliveries from Pfizer and AstraZeneca, even as new cases have skyrocketed in some countries.