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Norway reports deaths of 23 elderly patients after receiving Pfizer Moderna vaccine, launches probe
Oslo: Norway has reported an alarming trend of 23 elderly people dying shortly after receiving the Covid-19 vaccine. Apart from the 23, several others have fallen ill soon after the vaccination, triggering Norway to launch a probe into the deaths.
According to a report in The Bloomberg, Norway doctors have started investigating the deaths of 23 people who died shortly after receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against coronavirus. Doctors have said the adverse reactions were seen among people aged over 80 years who already have a frail body.
Although a direct connection between the Pfizer vaccine and these deaths is yet to be established, the experts have said 13 of the 23 people who died have shown common symptoms of mRNA vaccines such as diarrhea, nausea and fever.
Meanwhile, Pfizer has now gone to temporarily reducing its vaccine supply in Europe following the concerns raised with the deaths in Norway.
The reduction in deliveries is due to Pfizer limiting output so that it can upgrade production capacity to 2 billion vaccine doses per year from 1.3 billion currently, Norwegian Institute of Public Health (FHI) said.
The Norwegian Institute of Public Health has now issued caution against vaccinating the elderly people above 80 years saying those with a short remaining lifespan anyway, may not greatly benefit from the vaccine, reported Bloomberg.
So far, more than 30,000 people have received the first shot of the Pfizer or Moderna coronavirus vaccine in Norway since the end of December.
With the deaths of 23 elderly, experts have said, “Doctors must now carefully consider who should be vaccinated.
In its report, the Norwegian Medicines Agency said that 21 women and eight men had side effects.
Beside those who died, the agency said nine had serious side effects without a fatal consequence and seven had less serious side effects.
The nine patients had allergic reactions, strong discomfort and severe fever while the less serious side effects included severe pain at the injection site.