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(Adds AstraZeneca comment)
By Gwladys Fouche and Terje Solsvik
OSLO, March 13 (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 a low count of blood platelets, Norwegian health authorities
said on Saturday.
Norway halted the rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine on
Thursday, following a similar move by Denmark. Iceland later
followed suit.
"We do not know if the cases are linked to the vaccine,"
Sigurd Hortemo, a senior doctor at the Norwegian Medicines
Agency told a news conference held jointly with the Norwegian
Institute of Public Health.
All three individuals were under the age of 50.
The European medicine regulator, the European Medicines
Agency (EMA,) would investigate the three incidents, Hortemo
said.
"They have very unusual symptoms: bleeding, blood clots and
a low count of blood platelets," Steinar Madsen, Medical
Director at 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 said an analysis of its safety data covering
reported cases from over 17 million vaccine doses given had
shown no evidence of an increased risk of pulmonary embolism,
deep vein thrombosis or thrombocytopenia - having low levels of
platelets.
"In fact, the reported numbers of these types of events for
COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca are not greater than the number
that would have occurred naturally in the unvaccinated
population," a company spokeswoman said.
Such trends or patterns were also not observed during
clinical trials for the vaccine, she added.
Before Denmark and Norway stopped their rollout of the
AstraZeneca vaccine, Austria stopped using a batch of the shots
while investigating a death from coagulation disorders and an
illness from a pulmonary embolism.
The EMA said on Thursday the vaccine's benefits outweighed
its risks and that it could continue to be administered.
Europe is struggling to speed up a vaccine rollout after
delivery delays from Pfizer and AstraZeneca, even though
new cases have spiked in some countries.
(Editing by Timothy Heritage)
