Beautiful Virgin Islands

Wednesday, May 13, 2026

Denmark removes AstraZeneca from its vaccination program

Denmark removes AstraZeneca from its vaccination program

Denmark has removed the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine from its vaccination program, saying it is not needed because the country has already reached "such an advanced point" in its vaccine rollout.

All booked inoculations using the AstraZeneca vaccine will be canceled, but the decision was not based on safety concerns, said the Danish Health Authority in a statement Wednesday.

"We are basically in agreement with EMA's [European Medicine Agency] assessment regarding the AstraZeneca vaccine. That is why it is important to emphasise that it is still an approved vaccine [in Europe]," said Søren Brostrøm, director general of the Danish Health Authority. "And I understand if other countries in a different situation than us choose to continue using the vaccine."

The Danish Health Authority paused the use of AstraZeneca on March 11 and the Danish vaccination effort has continued with the vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna.

"If Denmark were in a completely different situation and in the midst of a violent third outbreak, for example, and a healthcare system under pressure -- and if we had not reached such an advanced point in our rollout of the vaccines -- then I would not hesitate to use the vaccine, even if there were rare but severe complications associated with using it," Brostrøm said.

Speaking to the press on Wednesday, the Danish Medicines Agency and its National Board of Health presented the results of their investigations around AstraZeneca and the consequences they will have for the Danish vaccination program.

"It is our decision to continue the rollout of vaccinations in Denmark without AstraZeneca," said Brostrøm, who added that the case of a 60-year-old Danish woman who died after being vaccinated with AstraZeneca was "very tragic."

Earlier in the month, the EMA concluded that the benefits of using the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine continue to outweigh the risks. The Danish Health Authority says it agrees with the agency's general findings and that the possible benefits of AstraZeneca in combating the Covid-19 pandemic continue to outweigh the risk of serious adverse events.

Brostrøm said the AstraZeneca vaccine had not been completely scrapped, but that the vaccine has been deselected due to "the specific, Danish context."

Brostrøm went on to call it "a milestone" that "we have now reached 1,000,000 vaccinated Danes," and said confidence in vaccines is important.

"When you vaccinate en masse, it is important to have a high level of support and trust in the vaccines," he said.

Denmark has reached the milestone of vaccinating 1 million people.


The Danish Health and Medicines Authority's decision to end the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine takes into account a number of factors including Denmark's low infection rate.

"It does not stem from the fact that we have a fundamental disagreement with each other," Tanja Erichsen, head of pharmacovigilance, told the press Wednesday. "The decision made in Denmark does not mean that the Danish Medicines Agency disagrees with EMA."

Erichsen made the comments moments before she appeared to collapse and fall at the press conference, which was later addressed by the Danish Medicines Agency on Twitter.

"Our head of pharmacovigilance, Tanja Erichsen, fainted during today's press conference," read the tweet.

"She is conscious again and is okay under the circumstances, but for safety's sake she takes a trip by ambulance to the emergency room to be checked."

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
The Great Western Exit: Why Best Citizens Are Fleeing the Rich World [PODCAST]
The New Robber Barons of Intelligence: Are AI Bosses More Powerful Than Rockefeller?
The End of the Old Order [Podcast]
Britain’s Democracy Is Now a Costume
The AI Gold Rush Is Coming for America’s Last Open Spaces [Podcast]
The Pentagon’s AI Squeeze: Eight Tech Giants Get In, Anthropic Gets Shut Out [Podcast]
The War Map: Professor Jiang’s Dark Theory of Iran, Trump, China, Russia, Israel, and the Coming Global Shock [Podcast]
Labour Is No Longer a National Party [Podcast]
AI Isn’t Stealing Your Job. It’s Dismantling It Piece by Piece.
Lawyers vs Engineers: Why China Builds While America Litigates [Podcast]
Churchill’s Glass: The Drunk, the Doctor, and the Myth Britain Refuses to Sober Up From
Apple issues an unusual warning: this is how your iPhone can be hacked without you doing anything
The Met Gala Meets the Age of Billionaire Backlash
Russian Oligarch’s Superyacht Crosses Hormuz via Iran-Controlled Route
Gunfire Disrupts White House Correspondents’ Dinner as Trump Is Evacuated
A Leak, a King, and a Fracturing Alliance
Inside the Gates Foundation Turmoil: Layoffs, Scrutiny, and the Cost of Reputational Risk
UK Biobank Breach Exposes Health Data of 500,000, Listed for Sale on Chinese Platform
KPMG Cuts Around 10% of US Audit Partners After Failed Exit Push
French Police Probe Suspected Weather-Data Tampering After Unusual Polymarket Bets on Paris Temperatures
News Roundup
Microsoft lost 2.5 millions users (French government) to Linux
Privacy Problems in Microsoft Windows OS
News roundup
Péter András Magyar and the Strategic Reset of Hungary
Hungary After the Landslide — A Strategic Reset in Europe
×