[ad_1]
Vaccination of high-priority groups of health workers can start from the second week.
Here’s what FHI Director Camilla Stoltenberg says at a press conference on Wednesday.
– It already makes sense now to prepare the vaccination of the highest priority groups of health personnel together with the oldest, he says.
Nursing home residents are first in line when the long-awaited corona vaccine will be distributed across the country. Then there is the oldest part of the population.
But health professionals have so far lagged behind everyone else who is defined as risk groups on the priority list.
FHI has said that this can be adjusted if the infection situation changes.
– We are making this adjustment now, says Stoltenberg.
also read
Hundreds of doses of vaccines have gone to waste
Outbreak danger
The reason is a major hazard in the coming weeks of local outbreaks. FHI is also concerned about infections and import mutations, according to Stoltenberg.
– It is due to the increase in the pressure of infection that we see, and the risk that the infection increases even more in the coming weeks, and therefore also because the pressure on the health service is greater, he tells VG.
– We have to be careful, because it takes about four weeks before the vaccine takes full effect.
In the specialized health service, they have defined 15 thousand who should be vaccinated before, and in the municipal health service, FHI, in consultation with the actors there, has come to the conclusion that the best solution is flexible, he explains.
– It will be open for them to use up to 20 percent of the doses that come in continuously.
The priority groups with health personnel thus receive a second of the vaccines, in parallel with the other priority risk groups that are vaccinated.
All people over the age of 45, residents of nursing homes, as well as people over the age of 18 with certain underlying diseases, are at increased risk of serious illnesses if they become infected. The higher the risk, the earlier the prioritization.
Since December 22, the infection trend has increased in Norway.
On Tuesday 693 new cases of infection were registered. This is 229 cases more than the average of the previous seven days, which is 464.
In recent days, five cases of the British variant of the mutated virus, which is supposed to spread faster, have also been discovered in Norway.
also read
Norway’s vaccine deal has been updated: receives 1.2 million more doses from Pfizer
Will use the extra doses
FHI has also decided, after a process with the Norwegian Medicines Agency, that they will recommend the use of the vaccine residues left in the vials in which the Pfizer vaccine comes, after using five doses.
It should be possible to draw six doses from the vials, even if it is defined as containing five doses. Read more about it here.
– You can start immediately. You are supposed to withdraw more than five full doses, but many will do so quickly. Information about this will be sent to the service today.
It is up to the municipalities and health trusts to assess whether they can use the additional doses.
– No, but it is an encouragement to do so, says Stoltenberg, adding that he thinks everyone will want to get to the.
