Danish Medicines Agency expands capacity for safety monitoring of COVID-19 vaccines

10 February 2021

The Danish Medicines Agency and drug regulatory authorities around the world find themselves in a massive historic task of monitoring the safety of COVID-19 vaccines. Thousands of people have already been vaccinated in Denmark, and within a short period of time, the rest of the Danish population is expected to be offered vaccination against COVID-19. To ensure intensive and close monitoring of the COVID-19 vaccines, the Danish Medicines Agency is stepping up its capacity by recruiting more employees to process reports of suspected side effects. 

Monitoring the safety of medicines marketed in Denmark is one of the Danish Medicines Agency’s core tasks. When it comes to the COVID-19 vaccines, the Danish Medicines Agency has planned intensively for the monitoring task because a very large proportion of the Danish population is expected to be offered vaccination within a short period. The aim is to keep a very close eye on the safety of the vaccines for COVID-19. The Danish Medicines Agency is expanding its monitoring capacity by hiring more employees to handle the reports of suspected side effects of the COVID-19 vaccines.

“We find ourselves in the middle of the biggest monitoring efforts in history. We take this task very seriously, and we are therefore stepping up efforts to ensure we can still offer the best possible monitoring of the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines in Denmark for the benefit of patient safety”, said Tanja Erichsen, Director of Pharmacovigilance at the Danish Medicines Agency.

The Danish Medicines Agency is recruiting 15-20 employees for an extra preparedness team for the handling of reported side effects once vaccination is rolled out to the rest of the Danish population.

Further reading:

Read the vacancy notice from the Danish Medicines Agency (in Danish): Danish Medicines Agency is recruiting professionals with a healthcare profile for the processing of reports of suspected adverse reactions of COVID-19 vaccines.

Read the latest status on reported adverse reactions of the COVID-19 vaccine (in Danish): Status on reviewed reports of suspected adverse reactions of the COVID-19 vaccine from Moderna after vaccination of more than 2,600 Danes

Status on reviewed reports of suspected adverse reactions of Comirnaty (BioNTech/Pfizer) after vaccination of more than 186,000 Danes