OSLO (Reuters) – Three Norwegian health workers who recently received the AstraZeneca vaccine against COVID-19 are being treated in hospital for bleeding, blood clots and low blood platelets, Norwegian health authorities said on Saturday. .
Norway stopped launching this vaccine on Thursday, following a similar move by Denmark. Iceland later followed suit.
“We don’t know if the cases are vaccine-related,” said Sigurd Hortemo, a senior doctor at the Norwegian Medicines Agency at a press conference held jointly with the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.
All three individuals were under 50 years of age.
European drug regulator EMA would investigate all three incidents, Hortemo added.
“They have very unusual symptoms: bleeding, blood clots and a low number of blood platelets,” Steinar Madsen, medical director of the Norwegian Medicines Agency, told NRK.
“They’re pretty sick … We take it very seriously,” he said, adding that authorities had received notification of the cases on Saturday.
AstraZeneca was not immediately available for comment.
Prior to the move to Denmark and Norway, Austria stopped using a batch of AstraZeneca shots while investigating a death from clotting disorders and a disease from a pulmonary embolism.
Still, EMA said Thursday that the benefits of the vaccine outweighed its risks and could continue to be administered.
Europe is struggling to accelerate the deployment of vaccines following delays in the delivery of Pfizer and AstraZeneca, even as the rise in cases amid a more contagious virus variant has led to new blockades in countries such as Italy and France.