Denmark will stop vaccinating people against Covid as health chiefs say the country now has the pandemic under control.

       It is believed to be the first nation to undertake the move with the Danish Health Authority claiming it is in a “good position”.

       High levels of vaccinations, a drop in the number of new infections and stabilising hospitalisation rates were cited as contributing factors to the decision to halt the national immunisation drive.

       Denmark's government became the first EU country to remove all pandemic-related domestic restrictions on 1 February, when it said the virus was no longer considered a critical threat. Officials said that while Omicron is surging in the Scandinavian country, the variant was not placing a heavy burden on the health system.

       About 81 per cent of Denmark's 5.8 million citizens have had two doses of the vaccine, and 62 per cent have received a booster jab. Infectious diseases director Bolette Soborg told AFP: “We are winding down the mass vaccination program against Covid-19.”

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       Ms Soborg added that invitations for jabs will cease on 15 May and resume after the summer. “This will be preceded by a thorough professional assessment of who and when to vaccinate and with which vaccines”, she added.

       A Health Authority assessment in February concluded that three shots had provided good protection to nursing home residents and people over age 85.

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       Meanwhile in the UK, the Health Security Agency is cutting its staff by almost half, with the government's 2021 Covid budget of ￡15 billion slashed by nearly 90 per cent.

       It comes as the number of people in the UK with Covid-19 fell last week, data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows.

       Professor James Naismith, director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute, and professor of structural biology at the University of Oxford, said: “All things being equal a fall in prevalence should feed through to reduced pressure in hospitals which are clearly under extreme stress. This will lead to a fall in deaths, which have continued to rob families of their loved ones.”