Covid-19 Vaccines killed, allergic reactions: how many died in Norway?

Photographer: Nathan Laine / Bloomberg

Like all new drugs, vaccines that have been authorized to protect against Covid-19 have some safety concerns and side effects. Many people who received the first two wild west shots, one from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE and another from Moderna Inc., had fever, headache and pain at the injection site. These side effects usually go away quickly. More worrying, Norway has reported deaths among elderly people with serious underlying health conditions after the administration of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine – possibly linked to these side effects. Some other recipients of the various jabs had a serious, but treatable, allergic reaction called anaphylaxis.

1. What is known about the deaths?

Twenty-nine were reported in mid-January among some 40,000 people who received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in Norway, where authorities prioritized immunizing asylum residents. Those who died were all in the “75 years +” range (the exact ages were not provided for privacy reasons) and included terminally ill patients with only a few weeks or months to live. All deaths that occur a few days after vaccination are carefully assessed. Those close to the time of vaccination are not necessarily because of the shot: an average of 400 people die each week in nursing homes and long-term care facilities, according to the Norwegian Medicines Agency. Sigurd Hortemo, the agency’s chief physician, said he cannot rule out that common adverse reactions to the vaccine, such as fever and nausea, can be potentially fatal in patients with serious underlying health problems.

2. Were there deaths elsewhere?

In Germany, where more than 800,000 people received the first of two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the Paul Ehrlich Institute investigated at least seven cases of elderly people who died shortly after vaccination. In his report, he said the deaths were probably due to patients underlying diseases, including carcinomas, kidney deficiencies and Alzheimer’s, not inoculation.

3. What reactions did these fatal cases develop?

Deaths in Norway have been linked to fever, nausea and diarrhea – relatively common and short-lived effects that some people may experience after almost any vaccination, according to information released by the Australian Therapeutic Administration. (He is working with the European Medicines Agency, which includes Norway, before deciding whether to approve the drug in Australia.) The reactions are not expected to be significant in the vast majority of people. Millions of doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine have been administered in the USA, UK and some other countries with no deaths reported due to the vaccine, Abrar Chughtai, a professor at the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of New South Wales, told the Australian Science Media Center.

4. What is known about the vaccine’s risks in older and frail people?

Not much. It is possible that adverse reactions common to vaccines that are not dangerous in younger patients and in good shape may aggravate the underlying disease in the elderly, Steinar Madsen, medical director of the Norwegian agency, told the medical journal BMJ. Only a limited number of people over the age of 85 have participated in large clinical trials of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the agency said. The average study participant for the two approved Western vaccines was in his 50s.

5. What is being done in response to the deaths?

The Norwegian Institute of Public Health updated its Covid-19 vaccination guide with more detailed advice on vaccinating frail elderly people. “We are now asking doctors to continue with the vaccination, but to make extra assessments of very sick people, whose underlying condition can be made worse by it,” said Madsen. The assessment includes discussing the risks and benefits of vaccination with patients and their families to decide whether immunization is prudent or not. Separately, neighboring Nordic Finland recommended against the systematic vaccination of terminally ill patients whose active treatment (in other words, those in palliative treatment) was stopped. The reason is that common side effects, such as temporary fever, can weaken your condition.

6. What other serious reactions have occurred?

The body fights foreign invaders through a variety of mechanisms that include the production of protective proteins called antibodies, the release of toxins that kill microbes and the organization of guardian cells to fight infection. As with any conflict, sometimes the effort to ward off an infection can be harmful. In rare cases, it can produce uncontrolled inflammation and tissue swelling in a severe allergic reaction called anaphylaxis. As well as 5% of the US population has had this reaction to various substances. It can be fatal if, for example, a person’s airways are closed, although deaths are rare. Allergies to insect bites and food can cause it, although reactions to medications are the most common cause of anaphylaxis fatalities in the US and the UK

7. Where did Covid-19 vaccines trigger cases?

According to January 6 report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 21 cases of anaphylaxis associated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine were confirmed in the country on December 23. Of these people, 17 had a documented history of allergy and seven had a history of anaphylaxis. On December 19th The CDC presentation referred to two cases in the UK associated with the same vaccine and, at the end of the month, in Israel, a man suffered anaphylactic shock one hour after receiving it, according to the Jerusalem Post. He said he had previous reactions to penicillin, the newspaper reported. CDC officials say they have also seen reactions to recipients of the Modern photo and are compiling data about them.

8. Has anaphylaxis been associated with vaccines before?