According to researchers at the Oslo University Hospital (Rikshospitalet), a strong immune response after the AstraZeneca vaccine led to three health workers getting blood clots. The information became known before EMA’s publication of its report.
The news became known on Thursday morning, NTB reports. One of the health workers is dead.
“We have received findings that can explain our inpatients’ clinical course,” chief physician and professor Pål Andre Holme at Rikshospitalet said at an urgent press conference on Thursday.
“We believe this is important to put out, we have found a sensible explanatory model,” Holme said.
Strong immune response
Holme has led a group at the hospital that has worked hard to find out why three health workers under the age of 50 were admitted with a severe blood clot after taking the AstraZeneca vaccine.
The conclusion is now that a strong immune response after vaccination has led to blood clots.
According to Holme, the explanation is that the immune response has led to the formation of antibodies that have caused the platelets to act in a way that blood clots have formed.
At the same time, the antibodies have contributed to platelets being removed from the circulation so that the people have had a low number of platelets and thus also experienced bleeding.
“We believe this is the direct reason why we see this clinical picture,” Holme said at the press conference on Thursday.
EMA report expected
Later Thursday, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) is expected to present its vaccine assessment. A number of countries in Europe have suspended vaccination with AstraZeneca’s corona vaccine, pending the EMA’s conclusion.
The researchers have no answer as to why exactly the three health workers got a blood clot.
“We have theories, but we have nothing to suggest why some get it and others do not,” said Holme.
According to Holme, so far, no explanation has been found as to why some get this reaction and others do not.
“We will now start looking at whether there are underlying factors or special predispositions. There is an enormous amount of work here,” Holme said.
“This is serious”
Health workers have been the primary recipients of the AstraZeneca vaccine in Norway so far.
“This is serious, and a partly expected conclusion, unfortunately, based on the described symptom picture. We are awaiting the EMA and the Norwegian Medicines Agency’s assessments,” Lill Sverresdatter Larsen, the Norwegian Nurses’ Association leader, told newspaper VG.
Steinar Madsen, medical director at the Norwegian Medicines Agency, did not want to comment on the findings immediately.
“We have to look at the results first, so I do not want to comment on it here and now,” Madsen told NTB.
“Now, this has to be discussed in the European Side Effects Committee.”
AstraZeneca also didn’t want to comment on the information.
“We are awaiting the EMA’s decision later today before we give comments,” AstraZeneca’s press manager Christina Malmberg Hägerstrand told NTB.
Source: © NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today / #NorwayTodayNews
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