Swedish health minister announced on Wednesday that Moderna’s vaccine against coronavirus will be suspended for all patients under 30.
Despite the ability of several vaccines against the COVID-19, the Swedish health experts find that the Moderna jab is not safe for young people. New preliminary Nordic analyzes indicate that the connection is especially clear when it comes to Moderna’s vaccine, especially after the second dose, the agency said.
“The increase in risk is seen within four weeks after the vaccination, mainly within the first two weeks,” it said.
The move was done out of precaution, Sweden’s Public Health Agency said in a statement. The reason for the pausing is possible “inflammation of the heart muscle or the pericardium”, The Local Sweden reports. In a study of more than 3,700 children ages 12 to 17, the vaccine triggered the same signs of immune protection, and no COVID-19 diagnoses arose in the vaccinated group compared with four cases among those given dummy shots.
Moderna’s use paused ‘out of precaution’
To date, the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is the only one approved for children under 18 in Europe and North America, while Moderna was given the green light across the EU for young people.
Hundreds of millions of Moderna doses already have been administered to adults. Sore arms, headache and fatigue were the most common side effects in the young vaccine recipients, the same ones as for adults.
The preliminary data from the Nordic study have been sent to the European Medicines Agency’s adverse reaction committee and will now be assessed.
In Denmark, children and young people ages 12-17 have primarily been invited to receive the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer/BioNTech. In future, only invite children and young people to receive this vaccine, not least in view of the fact that it is for this vaccine that the largest amount of data from use exists for children and young people, especially from the USA and Israel, Associated Press reports.
