The Norwegian and Danish health authorities in turn announced Thursday that AstraZeneca's anti-Covid vaccine would be reserved for people under 65, for lack of sufficient data on its effects beyond this age.
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The two Nordic kingdoms thus adopt the line chosen by several countries of the European Union, of which Norway is not a member but with which it has joined for the supply of vaccines.
During a press conference, the director of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Camilla Stoltenberg, explained this choice "
not because the vaccine does not work for the elderly but because the documentation is so limited
".
The health authorities of Germany, France and Sweden have also set 65 years as the age limit beyond which the vaccine from the Swedish-British laboratory is not recommended.
In Norway as in Denmark, an exemption will be made among those under 65 years of age for people suffering from underlying conditions and at high risk of developing a severe form of Covid: they will continue to receive messenger RNA vaccines. of the Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna groups.
For others to whom AstraZeneca vaccine will be administered, there will be an interval of nine to twelve weeks between the first and second dose injections in Norway and four to twelve weeks in Denmark.
“
We see that a longer interval between doses results in better protection,
” said Sara Watle, FHI physician.
Relatively spared from the pandemic, Norway has one of the lowest incidence rates (average number of new cases per 100,000 inhabitants over 14 days) in Europe, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC ).
To date, at least 135,000 people have received a first dose and more than 30,000 a second dose of Pfizer / BioNTech or Moderna vaccines in the kingdom of 5.4 million people, which officially hopes to have vaccinated a large part of the population. adult by summer.
In Denmark, the EU country with the most advanced vaccination campaign after Malta, 1.68% of 5.8 million inhabitants are fully vaccinated and 3.28% have received a first dose.
The country expects to have offered vaccination to its entire adult population by July 4.