No country currently recommends immunisation for healthy children, told Euractiv experts from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), an EU agency specialised in infectious diseases. [Shutterstock/Ira Lichi]
Although vaccinating healthy young people is not done by experts, the Swedish government has sown confusion among parents after a minister said there were no legal barriers to vaccinating young people, prompting complaints from the local government and doctors.
The COVID-19 vaccine for children was introduced in Sweden in April 2021. At that time, only 16- and 17-year-olds were recommended to get the jab.
Since then, Sweden’s public health authority has replaced its recommendations to vaccinate young people six times. The last time was a year ago, when the company limited referral to young people in at-risk groups.
But even though, until March of this year, childhood immunisation against COVID-19 was recommended in many European countries, the recommendation wasn’t carried over to this year’s fall season.
Lately, no country is recommending vaccinating healthy children, experts from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), a European company specialising in infectious diseases, told EURACTIV.
As in Sweden, young people with physical disorders can also be vaccinated.
But that hasn’t stopped parents from vaccinating their children. Since November 2022, parents have been traveling to vaccinate their children against COVID-19, basically in Germany, Swedish radio reported.
The Christian Democrat Minister of Social Affairs Jacob Forssmed recently stated that there were no legal barriers for children and adolescents to have the COVID-19 vaccine in Sweden.
“The regions are free to offer this as a service”, he told reporters at a press conference.
This followed a swift reaction from the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions, known as SKR.
“It is unfortunate when the state communicates that vaccines should be offered when it is not recommended”, Ameli Norling, head of SKR’s health care section, wrote in her blog, also warning that as a result, children can crowd out vulnerable people who really need the vaccine.
This is confusing for parents, she added.
Lisa Norén, a general practitioner and spokeswoman for the patient’s group Swedish COVID Association, also told Euractiv that the situation is bewildering.
“We want clarity. Will young Swedes be allowed to be vaccinated or not?” he asked.
Norling told EURACTIV that the regions had no plans to include healthy young people in their vaccination crusade for this season.
This is in line with the vaccination agreement between the agreement and the state, which focuses on vaccinating at-risk groups, adding to them other people over the age of 65, from severe illness and death, he said.
The agreement, which also governs the reimbursement of vaccination costs by the state, is expiring at the end of 2023. After that, regions must either bear the cost of vaccinations for 2024 or charge a fee. The vaccine itself will still be paid for by the state.
“We’re now thinking about how to move to vaccinating other teams in 2024, adding healthy kids,” Norling said.
However, existing regional vaccination plans will be extended until the end of March next year, meaning healthy young people will likely have to wait until spring next year to get their COVID-19 vaccine or booster.
Meanwhile, in Sweden, the number of COVID-19 cases is rising. As it is very limited, the grades are calculated from the degrees of virus in the sewer system. And the concentration of the virus now would be almost as high as it was in 2020.
“We, the Swedish Covid Association, have repeatedly highlighted that all recommendations regarding the vaccine need to consider the risk of long COVID and Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C). With a new wave of infections and decisions being delayed until spring, we wonder if this has really been taken into consideration?” Lisa Norén said.
But according to Magnus Gisslén, a Swedish state epidemiologist at the Public Health Authority, only a few young people want to be vaccinated seasonally against COVID-19.
“Our advice is very clear. We are not proposing to vaccinate healthy children. Health resources should be used where they work best,” he told EURACTIV.
“All of our knowledge implies that the risk of healthy children getting severe COVID-19 is very low and that they have intelligent immune protection, either against infection or from previous vaccination. “
When asked how long coverage lasts after infection or vaccination, which would last 3 to six months, Gisslénesaid replied that “it lasts much longer, especially after repeated vaccinations and infections. “
“As we become repeatedly inflamed, it boosts our immunity against COVID-19. “
He also noted that young people have a better immune system, adding that boys and young men have a lower risk of developing myocarditis as a side effect of the vaccine, which also goes against vaccinating healthy children.
[By Monica Kleja – Editing by Vasiliki Angouridi/Zoran Radosavljevic | EURACTIV. com]