Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

VACCINE

Norway to revise Covid-19 vaccine plan with 1.2 million extra Pfizer doses to be delivered

Norway is set to receive receive an extra 1,185,000 shots of the Pfizer vaccine against Covid-19 as part of an EU agreement which secured 100 million additional doses, meaning the country's vaccine strategy will need to be tweaked.

Published: 19 April 2021 17:56 CEST
Norway to revise Covid-19 vaccine plan with 1.2 million extra Pfizer doses to be delivered
Photo by Pascal GUYOT / AFP

The Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) informed news agency NTB of the new delivery on Monday.

NTB is also reporting that some of the doses will be included in the increased delivery that will take place during the second quarter.

This means that, potentially, some of these additional vaccines will arrive by June at the latest.

Pfizer BioNtech announced on Monday that the agreement with the EU comes after the European Commission decided they would take up the option to order another 100 million vaccines to fight Covid-19 as part of an agreement signed in February.

“We now intend to deliver a total of 600 million doses to the EU this year, which will cover two-thirds of the EU’s population. It is the largest delivery agreement for the vaccine that we have agreed globally,” commercial director at BioNTech, Sean Marret, said.

The news will come as a welcome boost to Norway, who said its vaccine program could face delays of anywhere between 7 to12 weeks if it decided to drop both the Johnson & Johnson and the AstraZeneca vaccines from its vaccine rollout.

MAPS: Where have Norway’s one million coronavirus been given 

AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson are currently being reviewed to determine whether they are suitable for use in Norway due to fears regarding blood clots after taking the vaccine.

The final decision on both will be made in May.

Newspaper Aftenposten reported that as a result of extra doses of the Pfizer vaccine being secured NIPH will now revise the organisation of its vaccine rollout once again.

Director Of Infection Control Geir Bukholm told VG he now expects everyone to be offered a vaccine by August. 

Pfizer is the most commonly used vaccine against Covid-19 in Norway with almost one million doses being distributed since vaccinations began in December.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

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.” 

READ ALSO: 

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.

SHOW COMMENTS