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(Adds a comment from the Italian Minister of Health, background)
By Essi Lehto
HELSINKI, Oct. 7 (Reuters) – Finland on Thursday suspended the use of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine for young men amid reports of a rare cardiovascular side effect, joining Sweden and Denmark to limit its use.
Mika Salminen, director of the Finnish Institute of Health, said Finland would instead give Pfizer’s vaccine to men born in 1991 and later. Finland offers shots to people aged 12 and over.
“A Nordic study involving Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark found that men under 30 who received Moderna Spikevax had a slightly higher risk than others of developing myocarditis,” he said. he declares.
Swedish and Danish health officials said on Wednesday they would suspend the use of the Moderna vaccine for all young adults and children, citing the same unpublished study.
Norwegian health officials reiterated Wednesday that they are recommending that men under the age of 30 opt for Pfizer’s vaccine.
The Finnish institute said the Nordic study will be published in a few weeks and preliminary data has been sent to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for further assessment.
The EMA’s safety committee concluded in July that such inflammatory heart conditions can occur in very rare cases after vaccination with Spikevax or the Pfizer / BioNTech Comirnaty vaccine, more often in younger men after the second dose.
Regulators from the United States, the EU and the World Health Organization, however, have pointed out that the benefits of injections based on the mRNA technology used by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech to prevent COVID-19 continue to increase. outweigh the risks.
A Moderna spokesperson said Wednesday evening he was aware of the decisions of Swedish and Danish regulators.
“These are usually mild cases and individuals tend to recover quickly after standard treatment and rest. The risk of myocarditis is significantly increased for those who contract COVID-19, and vaccination is the best way to avoid it. protect.”
Italy’s Health Minister Roberto Speranza told reporters Italy is not considering suspending the Moderna vaccine and said European countries should work more closely to coordinate better.
“We must trust the international authorities, starting with the EMA which is our reference agency and has expressed very clear judgments on the matter,” he said. (Reporting by Essi Lehto in Helsinki and Emilio Parodi in Milan; Editing by Alex Richardson and Alison Williams)
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