The Norwegian Medicines Agency has looked at 13 deaths following vaccination

[Gert van der Hoek]

January 14, 2021

The Norwegian Medicines Agency has assessed 13 deaths that may have been related to the coronary vaccine. Common to those who died is that they were old and frail.

More than 25,000 Norwegians have been vaccinated with the first dose of the coronary vaccine from Pfizer and Biontech since Christmas. On Friday, the first dose of the new Moderna vaccine will be given. So far, the Norwegian Medicines Agency has assessed 29 adverse reaction reports after the covid-19 vaccination. 13 of these had a fatal outcome, shows a new report from the Norwegian Medicines Agency.
A total of 23 deaths have been reported in connection with vaccination, but so far only 13 of these have been assessed. The other deaths are under treatment. Common side effects may have contributed to a serious course in frail elderly people, the Norwegian Medicines Agency reports .

Changes vaccine advice

All the deaths have occurred in frail, old patients in nursing homes. All are over 80 years old and some of them over 90, according to NRK.
- The reports may indicate that common side effects from mRNA vaccines, such as fever and nausea, may have led to deaths in some frail patients, says chief physician Sigurd Hortemo in the Norwegian Medicines Agency.
As a result, both the National Institute of Public Health and the Norwegian Medicines Agency have changed the coronary vaccination guide with new advice for this group.


- If you are very frail, you should probably not be vaccinated, said subject director Steinar Madsen in the Norwegian Medicines Agency at a webinar on coronary vaccine for journalists on Thursday.
He emphasizes over NRK that these cases are rare, and that many thousands of frail people have been vaccinated without a fatal outcome.
This is in line with the recommendations that came from FHI earlier this week.

 

[Gert van der Hoek]

Norwegian Agency of Medicin:

"For the vast majority of people who are elderly and live with frailty, any side effects of the vaccine will more than be offset by a reduced risk of becoming seriously ill from covid-19. However, for those with the most severe frailty, even relatively mild vaccine side effects can have serious consequences. For those who have a very short remaining life, the benefit of the vaccine may be marginal or irrelevant. Therefore, for very frail patients (eg equivalent to Clinical Frailty Scale 8 or higher) and terminally ill patients, a careful weighing of benefit versus disadvantage of vaccination is recommended.

 

[Gert van der Hoek]

Norway Moves to Calm Vaccine Anxiety After Elderly Deaths

18 januari 2021

Health authorities in Norway sought to allay safety concerns raised by the death of some elderly patients after they were vaccinated against Covid-19, saying there’s no evidence of a direct link.

The initial reports from Norway raised alarm as the world looks for early signs of potential side effects from the vaccines. Although doctors say it’s possible that vaccine side-effects could aggravate underlying illnesses, they were expecting nursing-home residents to die shortly after being vaccinated because deaths are more common among the frailest and sickest elderly patients.

“Clearly, Covid-19 is far more dangerous to most patients than vaccination,” Steinar Madsen, medical director at the Norwegian Medicines Agency, said by phone on Monday, adding that a connection between the vaccine and the deaths is difficult to prove. “We are not alarmed.”


In Norway, 33 people aged 75 and over died following immunization, according to the agency’s latest figures. All were already seriously ill, it said. The Scandinavian country has already inoculated almost all of its nursing home population, with more than 48,000 people vaccinated as of Monday afternoon.

The reported fatalities are well under 1 out of 1,000 nursing-home patients to be vaccinated, he said. The side effects of immunization can, in some cases, “tip the patients into a more serious course of the underlying disease,” Madsen said. “We can’t rule that out.”


“It is important to remember that about 45 people die every day in nursing homes in Norway, so it is not a given that this represents any excess mortality or that there is a causal connection,” Camilla Stoltenberg, head of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, said at a press conference on Monday.