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Norway to offer 16-and-17-year-olds Covid-19 vaccine 

Frazer Norwell
Frazer Norwell - [email protected]
Norway to offer 16-and-17-year-olds Covid-19 vaccine 
A medical staff member administers a dose of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine at a pop up vaccine clinic at the Jewish Community Center on April 16, 2021 in the Staten Island borough of New York City. (Photo by Angela Weiss / AFP)

The Norwegian government announced Wednesday evening that it would begin offering 16-and-17-year-olds in the country Covid-19 vaccinations once everyone over 18 had received their second dose.

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Covid-19 vaccinations will be available to 16-and-17-year-olds, but the government has yet to fully decide if it will offer jabs to 12-15-year-olds, Health Minister Bent Høie has announced. 

Vaccination for 16-17-year-olds will begin in September once everyone over 18 has received their second jab. After that, children will be offered the choice of whether they want a vaccine or not. 

The decision to offer coronavirus vaccines to this age group was made following the Norwegian Institute of Public Health's (NIPH) recommendation.

In most cases, those in this age group will be given doses of Pfizer, and Høie said that the government would now decide whether to begin vaccinating children aged between 12 and 15. 

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"Now we have some time left which we will also use to have the latest available knowledge from the NIPH before we make a decision on the 12-15-year-olds. I think this way of doing it contributes to people having confidence in the advice we give," Høie told newspaper VG.

COMPARED: How Covid vaccination rules for children differ around Europe

Vaccines will be administered at municipal vaccine centres. Pfizer has been recommended as the vaccine for younger age groups because it is the serum that the NIPH had the most data available for. 

"The NIPH has taken into consideration that we have the most knowledge about the use of Pfizer in this age group, and when we have the opportunity to make this choice, we choose what we know most about and recommend the Pfizer vaccine is used," Høie said. 

The interval between shots for younger people will be the same as the general population, 8-12 weeks. 

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