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Two out of three Norwegians will be vaccinated. Several of the EU vaccine candidates have promised doses during 2020.
Norway is part of an EU alliance that reserves hundreds of millions of doses of vaccines from various manufacturers, in the hope that one of them will succeed and actually work against the coronavirus.
– We have based an estimate on vaccinating 75 percent of the population that is in the risk group and 50 percent of the rest of the population, says Health Minister Bent Høie at a vaccination seminar on Tuesday morning.
Waiting for dose this winter
Ministerial Advisor Bjørn Inge Larsen at the Ministry of Health emphasizes that there is much uncertainty about when the first doses of an approved vaccine may be ready in Norway.
So far, the EU has agreements or letters of intent with six different manufacturers.
– Three of the six EU candidates have optimistic estimates of the delivery of vaccine doses in 2020. We are not entirely sure that it will actually happen, says the Minister.
Because it is not only necessary to show that vaccines really work. They must also be safe and have acceptable side effects. And production must be able to scale to deliver hundreds of millions of doses.
– Is it realistic to expect or expect two out of every three inhabitants to be vaccinated during 2021?
– It is not entirely unreasonable to believe that, with the optimistic estimates that these companies have. The EU assumes that many of these companies will not be successful. If these companies come to the projects we have underway, it is realistic to think in 2021, says Larsen.
The Health Minister, Bent Høie, points out that this is the most optimistic estimate: that Norway will receive doses of the vaccine already this winter and will vaccinate the part of the population that wants it during 2021.
But he emphasizes that a lot needs to be done to make this really happen.
– That is exactly the challenge, says the Minister of Health.
Researchers from around the world are now working with more than 200 candidates for a corona vaccine. according to VG Vaccine Summary there are seven of them right now in the final and crucial testing phase:
Who gets it first?
When Norway actually gets its doses of the vaccine here, initially there will be strict priorities on who will get it. And who to really prioritize first, it’s hard to say before you know which vaccine candidate will win. For some, it may work better in the elderly, others better in the younger, and may determine who should get it first.
But both FHI and the government and the World Health Organization point out to healthcare workers and people in the risk group who should get a vaccine first.
John-Arne Røttingen, Executive Director of the Research Council, notes that based on experience, only 20 percent of vaccine candidates who enter clinical trials (that is, human trials) will actually be approved and succeed.
-We do not know if it is comparable for this situation, he emphasizes.
12 of the candidate vaccines are relevant to Norway:
