Eleven years ago, there were long queues outside vaccination clinics throughout the country.

60 percent of the population took the vaccine against swine flu.

But hundreds of Swedes were injured for life and now their fate raises the question of whether the new pandemic vaccine will really be safe.

According to SIFO's surveys, the trend is clear, more and more people are skeptical about taking a vaccine against covid-19.

In the latest survey, every third Swede states that they do not want or are hesitant to take the syringe once the vaccine has been approved.

Claimed to be safe

Also in 2009, there were many who were worried about the rapidly developing Pandemrix vaccine against swine flu.

But the authorities and experts stuck to their recommendations, the benefits outweighed the risks.

But today we know that 440 Swedes got the severe neurological disease narcolepsy.

Was not sufficiently tested

The final content of Pandemrix was not tested at approval.

The approval was instead based on studies on a prototype vaccine that had only been tested on a small group of people, 5,000 adults and 300 children.

- Obviously, they would have needed to test more and much larger volumes, says Johan Carlson, Director General of the Swedish Public Health Agency.

"It is important that many people get vaccinated"

Soon we will again have to decide whether or not to get a pandemic vaccine.

According to the Swedish Public Health Agency, covid-19 vaccinations could save the lives of thousands of Swedes.

- If we have an effective vaccine, then it is important that as many people as possible get vaccinated so that we can suppress the pandemic, says Johan Carlson.

Many people have the Pandemrix tragedy in fresh memory, how are you going to make people dare to take the syringes?

- We expect that those who are at risk of serious illness will want to be vaccinated quickly, says Johan Carlsson.

Will the covid vaccines be safe?

-Yes, as safe as you can get them, so to speak.

But you can never say that you do not get side effects from a vaccine, completely safe are not vaccines.

"Must be better at detecting unusual side effects"

What have you learned from the previous mass vaccination?

-I believe that both the health service and the authorities have learned that we must be better prepared to quickly detect such unusual side effects, says Johan Carlsson.