When the first consignments of Comirnaty Covid arrive in Finland, vaccination of at-risk children aged 5-11 is expected to begin this week, according to the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL).
THL Chief Expert Mia Kontio, said 162,000 doses of Covid vaccine will arrive in Finland this week, and the next delivery of 78,000 is expected to arrive in the first week of next year. According to Kontio, decisions on additional deliveries have not yet been made.
The agency has not officially recommended vaccinations for 5-11 year olds who are not at risk, as their vaccination plan will be in place no earlier than January.
However, the THL has recommended vaccinations for people aged 5 to 11 years who live with immunocompromised people, but the wider introduction of vaccinations for non-at-risk children cannot begin until the legislation on voluntary Covid vaccination is changed.
Health authorities are waiting for more information on the safety of Covid vaccinations in children in this age group, especially about the possible rare side effects.
According to the THL chief physician To Hanna Nohy, vaccine doses are distributed to municipalities upon their arrival in Finland and decisions on dosing are made at the local level.
Pfizer-BioNTech
According to Kontio, young people will receive Pfizer-BioNTech’s Comirnaty vaccine.
"Vaccinations for children should be distributed in such a way that vaccinations for the most vulnerable groups, such as the elderly, are not delayed, Kontio said in a statement earlier this month.
The THL has roughly estimated that if children aged 5 to 11 are not vaccinated, by the end of March next year, 20 to 40 percent of the entire age group would get a coronavirus infection, depending on the severity of the epidemic. and the scope of the restrictive measures.
By November of this year, about five per cent of Finns aged 5-11 had a coronavirus infection, 33 of whom needed hospital treatment for one or two days.
The United States and Israel were the first countries to introduce Covid vaccines for 5 to 11-year-olds. In the EU, meanwhile, Austria has already started vaccinating children in this age group, while the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Denmark have decided to do so.
Based on data from other countries, children experience similar side effects to the vaccine as those over 12 years of age. The majority of side effects are mild and transient, including redness and swelling at the injection site, headache, tiredness, muscle aches and chills.