Denmark says Moderna vaccine remains available to under-18s

The Danish Health Agency said on Friday that it was continuing to offer Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine to under-18s, and that a statement on Wednesday suggesting a suspension had in fact been a miscommunication.

“The Danish recommendations have not been changed,” the agency said.

“The Danish Health Agency continues to assess that both COVID-19 vaccines, both the one from Pfizer/BioNTech and the one from Moderna, are highly effective vaccines that have an important place in the general vaccination programme in Denmark.”

On Wednesday, Sweden said it would pause using Moderna’s shot for people born in 1991 or later as data pointed to an increase of myocarditis and pericarditis among young people who had been vaccinated.

The Danish health agency then said that, while the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was anyway its main option for people aged 12-17 years, it had decided to pause administering the Moderna vaccine to under-18s under the “precautionary principle”.

It later retracted the statement – although Finland also announced a pause.

“We’ve communicated badly in this case,” the agency’s head of press, Tina Gustavsen, told Reuters. “It was simply bad wording.”

“We felt there was a need to say that we were not worried. We think it is a good and effective vaccine and we will continue to use it in the Danish programme.”

The agency said around 1,200 under-18s had so far received Moderna’s shot in Denmark.