Young people in Finland continue to be targeted by campaigns that aim to spread false information about the coronavirus vaccine, Tampere University Hospital (TAYS) has said.
According to the hospital, false information claiming that young people had been taken to the emergency room following their jabs has even been sent directly to the phones of children in Pirkanmaa.
There are no such patients, TAYS confirmed.
"I find this kind of false scaremongering against young people utterly reprehensible," TAYS infectious diseases doctor Reetta Huttunen said in a statement released on Friday.
Earlier in August the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) said a fifth of 12-15 year-olds had already got the jab.
Vaccine smear campaign
Earlier this month, Yle reported on a nationwide campaign to spread vaccine disinformation to young people in Finland.
A group calling itself Pelastetaan lapset or, "Let's Save the Children" began spreading false information about the vaccine on social media following Finland's decision to open vaccinations up to 12-15 year olds in early August.
The group prompted similarly-named charity Save the Children to release a statement saying that the closeness of the two organisations' names was "very unfortunate" and emphasised that it was not involved in any way with the anti-vaccine campaign.
According to cybersecurity professor Jarno Limnéll, the group's website was clearly designed and presented in order to influence people's opinions.
"A familiar-sounding name is used and medical experts with their titles are introduced," he said, adding that it always raises suspicions when a site does not have any contact information or are intentionally hidden.
"When this website has a questionable name that is clearly intended to be confusing and there is no proper contact information, then yes it suggests that everything is not quite right," Limnéll said.
What are the side-effects of the vaccine?
In an effort to combat the false information spread in Pirkanmaa, TAYS released guidance on the most common symptoms experienced following vaccination.
The side effects of vaccines are similar in young people as in adults. The most common symptoms are pain, swelling and redness at the injection site, fatigue, headache, chills, muscle pain and fever. These symptoms are not serious and will pass.
Tension and release of tension - related to fear of injections or relief at getting the Covid jab - can cause people to feel unwell and even faint. However, these reactions are related to the vaccination situation and not to the vaccine itself, TAYS said.
In the United States and Canada, millions of 12-17 year olds have received the Pfizer/BioNTech (also known as Comirnaty) vaccine and, according to TAYS, there have been no safety issues detected for the jab in this age group.