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VACCINE

79-year-old man first to get Covid-19 vaccine in Denmark

A 79-year-old man on Sunday morning became the first person in Denmark to receive the new Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine.

Published: 27 December 2020 11:03 CET
79-year-old man first to get Covid-19 vaccine in Denmark
Leif Heiselberg, 79, talks to reporters after receiving the first vaccine dose. Photo: Tim Kildeborg Jensen/Ritzau Scanpix
Leif Heiselberg joked with a doctor as he received his first dose at Ældrecenter Øst, an elderly care home in Odense on the island of Funen. 
 
The vaccine better work, he warned, “otherwise, I'll come and haunt you.” 
 
He said he was looking forward to being able to cuddle his grandchildren again. 
 
“It's a joy to me that I'll soon be finished with all this, that I will maybe be able to give my grandchildren a hug again,” he told Danish state broadcaster DR.  
 
Thomas Senderovitz, director of the Danish medicines agency, called the first vaccination “a gigantic achievement”. “It's the moon landing of our time,” he said. 
 
Denmark received 9,750 doses of the vaccine on Saturday, with the doses them sent out to elderly care homes in each of the country's five regions. 
 
Those who receive injections this week will require a second injection in two weeks. 
 
 
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The first in the queue are people in risk groups — the elderly and chronically sick — as well as people who work in elderly care homes and other people who have contact with those in risk groups. 
 
Denmark's prime minister Mette Frederiksen watched via a virtual connection as Jytte Margrethe Frederiksen, who lives in an elderly care home in Ishøj, outside Copenhagen, got vaccinated. 
 
Photo: Keld Navntoft/Ritzau Scanpix
 
EU commission chief Ursula von der Leyen hailed the start of the European Union's vaccination campaign as a “touching moment of unity and a European success story”.
 
Countries are showing different strategies in their vaccination targeting, with Italy focusing on health workers, France the elderly and in the Czech Republic the prime minister himself at the front of the queue.
 
In a sign of impatience, some EU countries began vaccinating on Saturday, a day before the official start, with a 101-year-old woman in a care home becoming the first person in Germany to be inoculated and Hungary and Slovakia also handing out their first shots.
 
 
 

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COVID-19

Public Health Agency recommends two Covid doses next year for elderly

Sweden's Public Health Agency is recommending that those above the age of 80 should receive two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine a year, once in the spring and once in the autumn, as it shifts towards a longer-term strategy for the virus.

Published: 23 December 2022 10:53 CET
Public Health Agency recommends two Covid doses next year for elderly

In a new recommendation, the agency said that those living in elderly care centres, and those above the age of 80 should from March 1st receive two vaccinations a year, with a six month gap between doses. 

“Elderly people develop a somewhat worse immune defence after vaccination and immunity wanes faster than among young and healthy people,” the agency said. “That means that elderly people have a greater need of booster doses than younger ones. The Swedish Public Health Agency considers, based on the current knowledge, that it will be important even going into the future to have booster doses for the elderly and people in risk groups.” 

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People between the ages of 65 and 79 years old and young people with risk factors, such as obesity, diabetes, poor kidney function or high blood pressure, are recommended to take one additional dose per year.

The new vaccination recommendation, which will start to apply from March 1st next year, is only for 2023, Johanna Rubin, the investigator in the agency’s vaccination programme unit, explained. 

She said too much was still unclear about how long protection from vaccination lasted to institute a permanent programme.

“This recommendation applies to 2023. There is not really an abundance of data on how long protection lasts after a booster dose, of course, but this is what we can say for now,” she told the TT newswire. 

It was likely, however, that elderly people would end up being given an annual dose to protect them from any new variants, as has long been the case with influenza.

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