No 14/17 - 2024

Annual report on the childhood vaccination programme 2023 now released

Since 2014, the Danish Health Authority, the Danish Medicines Agency and Statens Serum Institut have jointly prepared an annual report on the Danish childhood vaccination programme. The 2023 annual report has now been released.

Traditionally, the report is published in the course of Week 17 in connection with the European Immunization Week, which every year focuses on the importance of childhood immunisation in the WHO’s Europe Region. This year, the WHO celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Expanded Programme on Immunization (the EPI), and the information campaign focuses on how the vaccination programme provides protection across generations.

For many years, the Danish vaccination programme has enjoyed a high coverage, and 2023 was no exception. Multiple factors likely contribute to the sustained high coverage and the solid backing the programme enjoys. Firstly, parents in Denmark fundamentally exhibit a high level of trust in the programme and in the vaccination recommendations presented by health authorities. Secondly, significant efforts have been made to maintain and enhance programme coverage – among others by reducing disparities in vaccination coverage.

Trust, dialogue and a focus on reducing inequality in coverage were key elements in our work with the childhood vaccination programme in 2023. In this annual report, you may read about a study confirming the high willingness to vaccinate among parents and about initiatives identifying which parents are less likely than average to accept the offer of childhood vaccination. Additionally, you may learn about initiatives seeking to address the lower coverage of HPV vaccination observed among children with an ethnic minority background. In collaboration with the interest organisation Mino Denmark, the Danish Health Authority organised six information events (known as "Mino Talks") across the country in 2023 to inform about HPV vaccination, HPV-related diseases and to correct existing misconceptions about HPV vaccination. Mainly, the aim was to engage in conversations with citizens and answer their questions, especially those related to cultural taboos about HPV as a sexually transmitted disease and myths about HPV vaccination.

The initiatives that we, as health authorities, consistently implement to preserve and enhance trust in and coverage of the childhood vaccination programme are also being noticed abroad. Thus, in 2023, Denmark hosted an international visit planned by the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA) as part of the project "Overcoming Obstacles to Vaccination." Here, the Danish Health Authority and Statens Serum Institut shared insights with 16 European countries on various topics, including the Danish reminder scheme, which, once again in 2023, had a positive impact on programme coverage, along with the ongoing further training of public health nurses as vaccination ambassadors. Both of these topics are covered in more detail in the report.

In Denmark, infants start their course of the childhood vaccination programme at three months of age. At this age, the child is offered whooping cough vaccination, among others. To protect infants younger than three months, who are vulnerable to whooping cough, the whooping cough vaccination offer for pregnant women was temporarily reintroduced in 2023. Moreover, in January 2024, it was made permanent.

The whooping cough vaccination offer coincided in part with a major whooping cough epidemic in the latter half of the year, which likely motivated many pregnant women to accept the offer.

Therefore, coverage reached approx. 70% in this period. Fortunately, in the early months of 2024, the epidemic appears to have concluded.

In this report, we introduce and describe the latest initiatives related to the childhood vaccination programme. Furthermore, we present the 2023 aggregate coverage figures and incidences for the diseases we vaccinate against. Furthermore, we describe notified adverse events related to vaccination and the efforts made to monitor adverse events, including the reports received and processed in 2023. In recent years, the number of notifications has followed a decreasing trend.

We are pleased to share results and experiences with you and look forward to continuing the ongoing work to further enhance our childhood vaccination programme to the benefit of our children and society at large.

(J. Egebart, Danish Health Authority, L.B. Nielsen, Danish Medicines Agency, H. Ullum, Statens Serum Institut)