Norway said on Monday that no link has been made between Pfizer-BioNTechs COVID-19 vaccination and any post-vaccination deaths in the country, but recommended doctors consider the overall health of the most vulnerable before they have the chance. Since the start of the vaccination campaign in Norway in late December, 33 deaths have been recorded among elderly people who received their first dose, according to public health authorities.
“The reports suggest that common side effects from mRNA vaccines, such as fever and nausea, may have contributed to worsening their underlying diseases and fatal outcomes in some vulnerable patients,” the Norwegian Medicines Agency told CBS News’ Steve Berriman. “The patients died from their underlying disease.”
Of the 13 cases analyzed in detail so far, “they are people of advanced age, are vulnerable and all have serious illnesses,” the director of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Camilla Stoltenberg, told reporters. “When it comes to causes, no analysis has been done yet,” she said.
“It is important to remember that an average of about 45 people die every day in nursing homes in Norway, so it is not given that this represents excessive mortality or is related to the vaccines,” she said.
Following the reports of deaths, Norway has emphasized that physicians should individually consider whether patients who are frail or terminally ill should do so get the vaccine, as recommended in other countries.
“ It’s not impossible that some of those who got the vaccine are so weak that you might have had to reconsider and not give the vaccine because they are so sick they may have gotten worse from the normal side effects as the body responds and builds immunity, ”said Stoltenberg.
A number of countries, including the Norwegian neighbors Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Iceland, have reported deaths after vaccination, but no direct links to the vaccine have been established.
Pfizer and BioNTech told CBS News Monday that they were “working with the Norwegian Medicines Agency to gather all the relevant information.”
They noted that the vaccination campaign in Norway started with elderly people living in care homes, “most of whom are very elderly with underlying medical conditions and some of whom are terminally ill”.
“Our immediate thoughts are with the next of kin,” said Pfizer.
More than 48,000 people have been vaccinated so far in Norway.