STOPPED: The AstraZeneca vaccine was completely taken out of use in May. Photo: Dado Ruvic, Reuters.
––
The Ministry of Health has decided that all AstraZeneca doses that have already been sent to the municipalities will be discarded.
–
When the AstraZeneca vaccine was put on pause in March, the country’s municipalities had around 45,000 doses of the vaccine, FHI informs VG.
Since then, the vaccine has become completely taken out of use in Norway.
– The doses must be stored in a responsible manner in municipalities and health trusts until the expiry date, and then discarded, writes State Secretary Erlend Svardal Bøe in the Ministry of Health in an e-mail to VG.
They add that FHI has informed the municipalities about how to handle this.
Vrient regulations
Doses are discarded due to strict requirements for transport, temperature monitoring and storage conditions.
The Ministry believes that these requirements are important for us, and other countries, to be able to be sure that the vaccines we use are safe and stored in a safe manner.
– We have considered what will happen to these doses, and it will be demanding to donate them to other countries since it is difficult to document how the vaccines are stored and transported, he writes further.
Rare side effects
The AstraZeneca vaccine was withdrawn from the vaccination program due to fatal side effects. In Norway, four people died from having the rare condition VITT (vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia) – a rare combination with a low number of platelets triggered by the vaccine.
Denmark also took the vaccine out of the program, but has since chosen to offer it optionally outside.
Most European countries still have to use the vaccines. Many of them have chosen to only give it to the elderly.
–
