Booster dose for all people over the age of 65

Information in other languages (more languages will be published soon):

• Arabisk: Booster dose for all people over the age of 65 (05/10/21) PDF
• Dari: Booster dose for all people over the age of 65 (05/10/21) PDF
• Polsk: Dawka uzupełniająca dla wszystkich osób powyżej 65 roku życia (05/10/21) PDF 
• Russisk: Всем лицам старше 65 лет будет предложена дополнительная доза вакцины (05/10/21) PDF
• Somalisk: Tallaal xoojin ah oo la siinayo dhammaan dadka ka weyn 65 sano (05/10/21) PDF 
• Tigrinja: ክታበት ዳግመሕደሳ ንልዕሊ 65 ዝዕድሚኦም (05/10/21) PDF
• Tyrkisk: 65 yaş üzeri herkese güçlendirici aşı dozu önerilecek (05/10/21) PDF
• Urdu: Booster dose for all people over the age of 65 (05/10/21) PDF

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has assessed booster doses using the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. On Monday 4 October, the EMA concluded that booster doses may be considered at least 6 months after the second dose for people aged 18 and over.

‘There are signs that protection from serious illness is waning in the older age groups. The reason for a booster dose for older inhabitants is to increase protection against falling seriously ill with COVID-19, and to increase protection against new virus variants and to extend overall protection’, says Minister of Health and Care Services Bent Høie.

The Norwegian Institute of Public Health recommends that booster doses be given using the same vaccine priority groups as for basic vaccination. This means that nursing home residents and all people aged 85 or older will be offered the dose first, followed by the age groups 75-84 and 65-74.

Flu vaccine
The municipalities have good vaccination capacity, and have been asked to have preparedness in order to be able to offer booster doses. They will also be giving the seasonal flu vaccine in the next few weeks, so if there any capacity issues, they must prioritise vaccination in the following order:

1. First dose for unvaccinated people
   
   
2. Second dose for people who have only received their first vaccine dose
   
   
3. Third dose for people with weakened immune systems
   
   
4. Seasonal flu vaccine
   
   
5. Booster dose for nursing home residents and all people over the age of 65
   
   

‘The COVID-19 booster dose must not be prioritised at the expense of flu vaccination. It is important to get the flu vaccine because we expect large outbreaks of the flu this season. Older people have an elevated risk of falling seriously ill with the flu’, Mr Høie points out.

The Norwegian Institute of Public Health does not recommend that the flu vaccine and the COVID-19 vaccine be given at the same time. There should be a gap of one week between the two vaccines.

Excellent protection
The vaccines that are used in the Norwegian COVID-19 vaccination programme offer excellent protection against developing a severe case of COVID-19, and 85% of people over the age of 18 are fully vaccinated. Vaccination of the age group 12 and older continues. People with seriously weakened immune systems have already been offered a third dose.

There is good access to vaccines. The booster doses of the COVID-19 vaccine will be offered at the end of October/beginning of November, after flu vaccination has been completed. The different municipalities will finish vaccinating the different groups at different times.

‘The time when individual municipalities proceed to vaccinating the next priority group will be governed by the pace of vaccination in each individual municipality, and not by decisions made at the national level’, stresses Mr Høie.

Several countries have begun offering booster doses. Israel has given a booster dose to 3.2 million people. Denmark is offering a third dose to nursing home residents, and is also considering offering it to older people and people who belong to risk groups. Sweden recommends a booster dose to people over the age of 80 and nursing home residents.

31 million doses to other countries
Norway has been an international advocate for increasing the production and distribution of vaccines for other countries through ACT A (Access to Covid-19 Tools Accelerator) and the COVAX initiative. Norway has also been actively involved in the work to share vaccine doses from the European collaboration on vaccine procurement, and has established a law office to help member nations of the EU and the European Commission draft vaccine sharing agreements.

“Thanks to Norwegian legal assistance, we have just landed a new agreement with vaccine manufacturer Janssen and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. The agreement will allow Norway to channel 3 million doses of the Janssen vaccine through the COVAX initiative during the next few months’, states Mr Høie.

In total, Norway will be sharing 31 million vaccine doses with other countries.

‘It’s possible to multitask. We can protect our population while helping other countries receive vaccines. We have enough vaccines in storage in Norway to offer booster doses for older people. Going forward, our goal is to only receive as many doses as we need at any given time’, stresses Mr Høie.

Accepting a booster dose will not have any consequences for COVID-19 certificate holders. At present, the third dose for people with weakened immune systems and the booster doses are displayed as 3/2 (dose 3 of 2) on the COVID-19 certificate.

Extra dose for people who have received the Janssen vaccine
The Ministry of Health and Care Services has decided to follow the recommendation of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health and offer a booster dose of an mRNA vaccine to people who have received one dose of the Janssen vaccine. The Janssen vaccine is a single-dose vaccine.

‘Being fully vaccinated with one dose of the Janssen vaccine appears to offer less protection from COVID-19 infection and illness, compared with two doses of an mRNA vaccine. The Norwegian Institute of Public Health therefore recommends one dose of an mRNA vaccine in order to increase protection. People who would like a booster dose of an mRNA vaccine may contact the vaccination service of the municipality they are in’, says Mr Høie.

Just over 4 000 people in Norway are registered as having been received the Janssen vaccine in the Norwegian Immunisation Registry SYSVAK.

Definitions

Third dose	An extra vaccine dose for people with seriously weakened immune systems for whom the effectiveness of the vaccine after two doses is presumed to be weak.
Booster dose	Can be given to people for whom two doses are presumed to be effective. They will receive another dose in order to bolster the effectiveness.