Iceland Bans Use Of Modern Vaccine

Iceland completely bans Moderna Vaccine…

Kane

Iceland is joining its Nordic peers in halting inoculations with Moderna Inc.’s Spikevax shot on concern over side effects. The Moderna jab, which has mostly been used in Iceland for second doses, won’t be used until more information over its safety has been collected, the chief epidemiologist said on Friday.

 

Sweden, Denmark and Finland have this week suspended the jabs for younger people because of the risk of heart inflammation as a potential side effect. Norway said men under 30 should consider choosing the Pfizer Inc.’s and BioNTech SE’s rival vaccine, and the other Nordic nations also recommended that as an alternative. Both vaccinations use messenger RNA technology to prompt an immune reaction.

 

“As the supply of Pfizer vaccine is sufficient in the territory … the chief epidemiologist has decided not to use the Moderna vaccine in Iceland,” said a statement published on the website of the Health Directorate.

 

This decision owed to “the increased incidence of myocarditis and pericarditis after vaccination with the Moderna vaccine, as well as with vaccination using Pfizer,” the chief epidemiologist said in a statement.

 

For the past two months, Iceland has been administering an additional dose “almost exclusively” of the Moderna vaccine to Icelanders vaccinated with Janssen, a single-dose serum marketed by America’s Johnson & Johnson, as well as to elderly and immunocompromised people who received two doses of another vaccine.

 

This will not affect the vaccination campaign in the island of 370,000 inhabitants, where 88 percent of the population over 12 years old is already fully vaccinated.

 

Sweden and Finland have also suspended the use of the Moderna vaccine for those under 30, due to a risk of inflammation of the myocardium, the heart muscle, and the pericardium, the membrane covering the heart.