STOCKHOLM, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- A total of 136 people in Sweden who got vaccinated reported that they had experienced side effects, and among them, women were "overrepresented", Swedish TT news agency said on Wednesday.
"So far, 136 people in Sweden have had suspected side effects after vaccination with the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer/BioNTech," TT said, citing the Swedish Medical Products Agency. Among those cases, women were overrepresented, the report said, without elaborating specific numbers.
"We have seen similar trends before, when it comes to COVID-19 vaccine, that women have a greater tendency to report their own perceived suspected side effects. It could have a meaning and I currently have no other explanation," Veronica Arthurson, unit manager at the Swedish Medical Products Agency, told TT.
In neighboring Norway, the Norwegian Medicines Agency (NoMA) said last week that an adverse reaction to the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine may be responsible for as many as 23 reported deaths among frail and elderly patients in nursing homes in Norway.
"The assessment suggests that common adverse reactions to mRNA vaccines, such as fever and nausea, may have contributed to a fatal outcome in some frail patients," said Sigurd Hortemo, NoMA's chief physician.
Meanwhile, due to reduced delivery of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines in Sweden, the vaccination process is reported to be postponed in the Swedish southern region of Skane, where transmissions are higher than the national average.
"Based on the fact that there are thousands of fewer doses we receive, there are thousands of people affected by this," Gilbert Tribo, regional councilor and chairman of Region Skane's health and medical care committee, told Swedish Television on Wednesday, adding that the region would receive 20 percent fewer doses than expected.
"It will be a huge disappointment for those who have received information that they would get the vaccine on Monday and who now could not get it," Tribo added.
Sweden's Public Health Agency said on Tuesday that 147,000 people, or 1.47 percent of the population, had been vaccinated against coronavirus in the country by last Sunday.
Meanwhile, COVID-19 continues to spread in the country. Latest statistics from the agency showed that 4,702 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been reported since Tuesday, bringing Sweden's total to 537,967 confirmed cases.
A further 206 coronavirus-related deaths have been registered since Tuesday, bringing the total number of deaths to 10,797 in Sweden.
As the world is struggling to contain the pandemic, vaccination is underway in Sweden and other countries with the already-authorized COVID-19 vaccines.
Meanwhile, 237 candidate vaccines are still being developed worldwide -- 64 of them in clinical trials -- in countries including Germany, China, Russia, Britain and the United States, according to information released by the World Health Organization on Jan. 15. Enditem
