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Lisa Ulander, 24, suffered from narcolepsy after the swine flu vaccine.
But you still don’t hesitate to take the corona vaccine when it is offered to you:
– It’s incredibly unfair that I have narcolepsy. But I can’t demand that people be locked up because I don’t want to get vaccinated.
Of the nearly 5 million Swedes who were vaccinated against swine flu in 2009, around 440 people suffered from narcolepsy.
Mass vaccination against covid-19 will soon begin, with some doubting the consequences of the Pandemrix vaccine in recent memory.
Lisa Ulander, 24, is one of those who was diagnosed with narcolepsy two years after being vaccinated against swine flu. She understands those who doubt, but still urges everyone to get vaccinated.
– It’s incredibly unfair that I have narcolepsy. But people can’t use it as an argument not to get vaccinated, it doesn’t hold up. Pandemrix was a one-time event, says Lisa.
“You must think of others”
The first covid-19 vaccinations in Sweden are expected to begin on December 27, when each region will receive a few hundred initial doses. First, there are people in the risk group and care personnel. On New Years, there will be a slightly more substantial charge at 80,000 doses, according to vaccine coordinator Richard Bergström, with as many expected to be delivered each week thereafter.
Vaccinating the entire population will take time, but it can be ready before summer.
Photo: Private
Lisa Ulander, 24, is one of those who was diagnosed with narcolepsy two years after being vaccinated against swine flu. She understands those who doubt, but still urges everyone to get vaccinated.
Lisa Ulander thinks the idea of taking the syringe itself feels uncomfortable, but tries not to let her emotions rule:
– Obviously, I’m not worried about the vaccine. On the other hand, it feels so purely emotional. I am not in any risk group and probably would have done well if I had been infected. But I have to think of something other than myself.
Specific group affected
According to the researchers, those with narcolepsy after mass vaccination against swine flu were already predisposed to the disease.
Farshid Jalalvand is an Assistant Investigator in Clinical Microbiology. Explain that the vaccine gives a “wish picture” to the immune system about which microbes to fight. In the case of Pandemrix, the image resembled cells that already existed in people with a predisposition to narcolepsy.
– There was something about the swine flu vaccine that looked like the cells these people already had in their bodies. This caused the immune system to give in to certain brain cells and in this way narcolepsy was triggered, says Farshid Jalalvand.
Photo: Private
Farshid Jalalvand is an Assistant Investigator in Clinical Microbiology.
He also says that for some people predisposed to narcolepsy, it was the swine flu itself that triggered the disease.
– In China, where the population was not vaccinated, the number of narcolepsy cases was also seen to increase that year.
Therefore, you will not get narcolepsy from the corona vaccine.
Both the virus and the vaccine differ in several ways when comparing swine flu and COVID-19, explains Farshid Jalalvand:
– It can be said that the desired image that the immune system will obtain to detect and fight the corona vaccine is an image of Zara Larsson. The one with the swine flu was in Leif GW Persson. They cannot be mixed.
But, he emphasizes, it should never be said that there is no risk of serious side effects from a vaccine, even if it appears to be very small with the covid vaccine.
– If it is the case that the coronavirus could trigger narcolepsy then we would have seen it now. As for extensive vaccine testing, we should have seen signs of that as well, but we haven’t. So the risk is very, very small.
Vaccine Coordinator: Almost no risk at all
Nearly 44,000 people have participated in trials of the Pfizer / Biontech corona vaccine and, so far, no serious side effects have been reported.
Sweden’s vaccine coordinator Richard Bergström says he therefore doesn’t see a great risk of a repeat of the scandal after Pandemrix.
– There are no vaccines that are completely free of side effects, but when you try as many as in this case, there is almost no risk that you will miss these kinds of serious side effects, he says.
Although the risk of serious side effects is small, Richard Bergström understands that some people feel indecisive.
– I have all the respect for that. Here I think you have to do a risk assessment, like when you get into a car or a plane. Weigh the benefit to society against the risks of the vaccine.
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