Three people in Norway were treated for “unusual symptoms” after being hit with AstraZeneca COVID-19

OSLO (Reuters) – Three Norwegian health workers who recently received the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine are being treated in hospital for bleeding, blood clots and low blood platelets, Norwegian health officials said on Saturday.

Norway stopped launching the AstraZeneca vaccine on Thursday, following a similar move by Denmark. Iceland followed suit.

“We do not know if the cases are related to the vaccine,” Sigurd Hortemo, a senior doctor at the Norwegian Medicines Agency, told a news conference jointly with the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.

All three people were under 50 years old.

The European Medicines Authority, the European Medicines Agency (EMA), will investigate the three incidents, Hortemo said.

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

“They are quite ill … 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 the reported cases of more than 17 million doses of the vaccine showed no evidence of an increased risk of pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis or thrombocytopenia – with low platelet levels.

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

No such trends or patterns were observed during clinical trials for the vaccine, she added.

Before Denmark and Norway stopped launching the AstraZeneca vaccine, Austria stopped using a batch of photos while investigating a death from coagulation disorders and a disease caused by a pulmonary embolism.

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

Europe is struggling to speed up the launch of the vaccine after delivery delays at Pfizer and AstraZeneca, even as new cases have risen in some countries.