Covid vaccination starts for 16- to 18-year-olds from high-risk groups

Young people between the ages of 16 and 18 who are at a higher risk for serious symptoms of Covid-19 will start receiving their vaccinations against the coronavirus disease on Monday. The advice to vaccinate people in the younger age group if they have relevant medical conditions was issued by the Dutch Health Council earlier this month.

The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine will be given to people born in 2002, 2003 and 2004 if they fall into a high-risk group. This concerns young people with immune system diseases, neurological conditions that affect breathing, Down's syndrome, or who are morbidly obese (defined as a body mass index above 40).

Patients from this group will receive an invitation from their primary care physician. The young people from this group who are not mobile will be vaccinated at home. The vaccination process for this group is expected to take up to three weeks.

The Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer/BioNTech is the only vaccine which may be used in Europe with people aged 16 or 17. The other approved vaccines from AstraZeneca, Johnson and Johnson and Moderna are only allowed to be used on people aged 18 and up.

Over the last weekend, the Netherlands passed another milestone, with over five million Covid-19 vaccines now administered. An estimate from the RIVM showed that 5,128,167 doses of coronavirus vaccines have been put into arms. The country ranks 4th in the EU for the uptake of at least one dose of a vaccine.