Five Norwegians died after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine last year. Now the vaccine company admits that they could have communicated differently when it stormed the worst.
Less than 20 minutes ago
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– What happened is incredibly sad and sad. We have condoled to the families who have contacted us and they obviously have our deepest sympathy, says communications director for AstraZeneca, Jacob Lund, to VG.
11. mars 2021 Norway put the AstraZeneca vaccine on pause after the first report of unusual blood clots after vaccination.
In the days that followed ticked in several cases with the life-threatening combination of low blood platelets and unusual blood clots also in this country.
A total of five people, all health workers, died from the rare side effect.
The vaccine triggered an unexpected immune response which has triggered the system in the sick patients.
In the podcast «Brain disaster » VG tells the story of Marius Holden, who had his life turned upside down after taking the AstraZeneca vaccine.
– Terribly heavy
– It is terribly heavy when healthy people are affected by very, very rare side effects when it should be a vaccine that will protect them against a serious and contagious disease we have lived with in recent years, Lund says.
–– As a fellow human being, it affects me and my colleagues who work there, Lund says.
AstraZeneca, which is a Swedish-British company, went into this without having to make money on the vaccine during the pandemic, he emphasizes.
– Then it is terribly heavy of course when there are cases like those that happened in Norway.
– Sorry
– We regret that innocent, healthy people were affected. At the same time, the vaccine has also played a crucial role in repelling the pandemic.
Lund emphasizes that both the production and testing of the vaccine have followed all protocols.
– It was not because any steps were skipped. On the contrary, we did larger, clinical trials on this vaccine than we have done on any other drug in the past, he says.
– Everyone was curious
He tells of dramatic and hectic days when everyone wanted answers to what this was:
– Absolutely all the media in the whole world, all the politicians in the whole world in the whole world, all the people in the whole world were curious.
Both the doctors at Rikshospitalet, the National Institute of Public Health and the Norwegian Medicines Agency worked hard during these March days to find the cause of this very special disease picture. They became increasingly confident that it was the vaccine.
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But a couple of days after Norway stopped the vaccine, AstraZenecas Lund went out in the TV2 news and said that the vaccine was safe and that the reported numbers of cases were not greater than what would happen in an unvaccinated population. He takes self-criticism on:
– I think both I and others have learned that one should be careful about being categorical at an early stage where there is a lot of uncertainty.
Still a mystery
In the weeks that followed, it became clear that AstraZeneca was finished in Norway. In April, the authorities took it completely out of the vaccination program.
– What do you know about what actually happens in the body of those who have been affected by these serious side effects?
– That the definitive mechanism behind these events is still not finally determined. You can say that most people agree on what happened, but not exactly why it happened then. Nor why it has happened more often in Norway and in the Nordic countries than in other parts of the world.
Researchers believe The reason is the platform used to create the vaccine, which is called an adenovirus vector.
This is the same type of vector that Johnson & Johnson also used, as was never taken in bridgein the Norwegian vaccination program.
– Played a role in the pandemic
As of today, AstraZeneca has delivered 2.9 billion to more than 180 countries. Lund emphasizes that the vaccine has saved many lives:
– I hope and believe that when you get some distance, you see that this vaccine has also been given to so many people all over the world. It has played a role in repelling the pandemic.
– And, then it’s a good thing too.
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