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OSLO: Three health workers in Norway who recently received the AstraZeneca vaccine against COVID-19 are being treated in hospital for bleeding, blood clots and a low platelet count, Norwegian health authorities said on Saturday (March 13) .
Norway halted the launch of that vaccine on Thursday, following a similar move by Denmark. Iceland then did the same.
“We don’t know if the cases are related to the vaccine,” Sigurd Hortemo, a senior physician at the Norwegian Medicines Agency, told a press conference held in conjunction with the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.
All three individuals were less than 50 years old.
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European drug regulator EMA would investigate all three incidents, Hortemo added.
“They have very unusual symptoms: bleeding, blood clots and a low platelet count in the blood,” Steinar Madsen, medical director of the Norwegian Medicines Agency told broadcaster NRK.
“They are quite sick … We take this very seriously,” he said, adding that authorities had received notification of the cases on Saturday.
AstraZeneca was not immediately available for comment.
Before moving from Denmark and Norway, Austria stopped using a batch of AstraZeneca injections while investigating a death from bleeding disorders and pulmonary embolism disease.
READ: Australia continues AstraZeneca rollout, says no evidence of blood clots
READ: Denmark and Norway temporarily suspend COVID injections from AstraZeneca after reports of blood clots
Still, the EMA said Thursday that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh its risks and that it could continue to be administered.
Europe is scrambling to speed up the launch of a vaccine after delivery delays from Pfizer and AstraZeneca, even as a spike in cases amid a more contagious virus variant has led to new lockdowns in countries like Italy and France.
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