Norway investigates deaths of 23 elderly Pifzer-BioNTech vaccine recipients
- by Lorene Schwartz
- in People
- — Jan 19, 2021
The Ministry of Health (MOH) is updating its vaccination protocols following reports of 23 deaths among those aged 80 and above in Norway, following their first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
Last week, the CDC reported that out of almost 2 million people who were vaccinated against COVID-19, only 21 experienced severe allergic reactions during a 10-day period in December.
Ford said he wishes he had held back even more doses to ensure everyone could get a second dose on time. NOMA is investigating the deaths.
Norway said no link had been established between Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine and post-vaccination deaths in the country, but recommended doctors consider the overall health of the most frail before giving them the jab.
American pharmaceutical firm Pfizer assured they are working with health authorities in Norway to find out if the deaths there are really related to their COVID-19 vaccine. Communicating on the app with such a business, they noted, meant that it could then "use that information for its own marketing purposes, which may include advertising on Facebook", hence the need for the privacy terms to be updated.
"Clearly Covid is far more risky to most patients than vaccination".
The timeline of delivering second doses depends on the vaccine supply, said the memo.
Epidemiologist Hassan Vally says "every single bit of information we can gather" will be factored into the evaluation of the medicine, and into Australia's vaccine strategy.
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In a change of advice, officials will now leave it up to each doctor to consider who should be vaccinated and who shouldn't. Only three of these cases required hospitalisation, and two had been discharged already, the Ministry said.
Across the world, officials expect deaths and other severe side effects to be reported after any mass vaccination campaign given the huge numbers of people involved.
At least three provinces are now temporarily delaying or pausing COVID-19 vaccination programs amid fallout from Pfizer's decision to reduce Canada's vaccine deliveries over the next month.
It was important to put the Norway deaths into perspective, he said.
In a change of advice, officials will now leave it up to each doctor to consider who should be vaccinated and who shouldn't.
'All of these patients have had serious underlying illnesses, ' the agency's medical director Steinar Madsen told Bloomberg, adding that they were all 75 or over.
'We are aware that deaths have also been reported in other countries, but do not have full details of this yet, ' the agency announced.
More data needs to come in, and Fishman thinks "we'll know more" this week, but he's cautiously optimistic about how things are going.
What is critical is to determine whether the vaccine was responsible for the death.
