Norway is rethinking its policy on vaccinating the elderly with serious underlying health conditions after 29 nursing home residents died after receiving the Pfizer Covid vaccine.
The age group of those affected were from 75 and older.
"All deaths are thus linked to this vaccine,” the Norwegian Medicines Agency said in a written response to Bloomberg on Saturday.“There are 13 deaths that have been assessed, and we are aware of another 16 deaths that are currently being assessed,” the agency said. All the reported deaths related to “elderly people with serious basic disorders,” it said. “Most people have experienced the expected side effects of the vaccine, such as nausea and vomiting, fever, local reactions at the injection site, and worsening of their underlying condition.”
Steinar Madsen, medical director with the agency, was quoted in the AP report, saying: “Doctors must now carefully consider who should be vaccinated. Those who are very frail and at the very end of life can be vaccinated after an individual assessment.”
The Norwegian authorities have adjusted their advice on who should be administered the vaccine by giving individual doctors discretion to make this decision. The suggestion is that the vaccines may be risky for very old or terminally ill people. This, the Bloomberg report said, is “the most cautious statement yet from a European health authority”.
The report said that in the judgment of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health now, “for those with the most severe frailty, even relatively mild vaccine side effects can have serious consequences”. Thus, “for those who have a very short remaining life span anyway, the benefit of the vaccine may be marginal or irrelevant”.
Sources:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-16/norway-vaccine-fatalities-among-people-75-and-older-rise-to-29
Photo Above: Svein Andersen, 67, is first in Norway to receive the Pfizer-Biontech COVID-19 vaccine in Oslo, Norway, on December 27, 2020.
Fredrik Hagen/NTB/AFP via Getty Images
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