Could Free Chickenpox Shots Be a Bad Idea?

Frederikke Høye

January 30, 2026
9:49 am

Denmark’s health authorities are investigating whether to add chickenpox vaccination to the free childhood immunization program, but experts warn that success would require over 90 percent uptake to avoid making the disease more dangerous for those who contract it later in life. Currently, families can pay up to 800 kroner per dose for two shots, leading to significant geographical and socioeconomic disparities in vaccination rates.

Free Chickenpox Vaccine Under Consideration

The Danish Health Authority has begun examining whether chickenpox vaccines should become part of the national childhood vaccination program. According to a response to Parliament’s Health Committee from Health Minister Sophie Løhde, the authority will prepare a professional assessment to determine if all children should receive free vaccination against the disease in the future.

Currently, parents can choose to vaccinate their children against chickenpox by paying privately. The vaccine requires two doses at approximately 800 kroner each. This option has become increasingly popular in certain parts of the country, while remaining markedly less common in others. The inequality created by paid vaccinations has prompted several voices to suggest making the vaccine free for all children.

High Vaccination Rate Required for Success

The goal of including chickenpox vaccine in the childhood program would be to eventually eliminate the disease in Denmark entirely. However, this requires extremely high participation rates, explains Jens Lundgren, a physician at Rigshospitalet and professor of infectious diseases at the University of Copenhagen. He also serves on the Vaccine Council, which advises the Health Authority on vaccine matters.

The problem with starting vaccination without high uptake is that fewer people will contract chickenpox, but not few enough. This means the chains of infection that typically ensure children get chickenpox while very young, when they’re still protected by antibodies from their mothers, would occur later in life instead. At that point, chickenpox becomes a far more serious disease.

According to Lundgren, more than 90 percent of children would need to be vaccinated before it achieves the desired effect. Whether this is achievable remains uncertain, and for this reason, potential support for a free vaccine is being investigated by the Vaccine Council. Previously, vaccinations have been removed from the childhood program due to low uptake, as happened with influenza and COVID-19 vaccines for children.

Not a Deadly Disease

Chickenpox causes illness, but only very rarely ends seriously. For most children, chickenpox means a period with fever and rash, while very seldom it can affect the brain, explains Lone Graff Stensballe. She is a pediatrician and clinical professor at Rigshospitalet’s children’s department with expertise in childhood infectious diseases.

Chickenpox is not a deadly disease, she states firmly. She points out that it’s difficult to decide when a disease is frequent and serious enough to warrant offering vaccination to everyone. But the argument that it would mean less inconvenience and fewer sick days for parents, and therefore ultimately benefit the economy, cannot stand alone as justification, in her view.

Instead, additions to the childhood vaccination program can come with their own side effects, Stensballe believes. Interestingly, the hope is that vaccinating against chickenpox would also reduce the risk of shingles in the long term. But moving from vaccinating against truly dangerous diseases to vaccinating against less dangerous ones can be problematic.

The concern is creating a situation where people begin to think whether it’s really important for their child. She worries this could eventually damage support for the childhood vaccination program generally if too many vaccines are included, including vaccines against non-deadly diseases, because some may get the impression that the other vaccines are also less important.

Parental Concerns About Vaccination

Stensballe observes that the most important factor for parents when considering the vaccination program is whether it benefits their children’s health. As a pediatrician, she prefers not to sit across from them arguing for what’s best for society. Parents actually think quite carefully about vaccination, whether it’s chemical, whether it’s foreign to the body, whether it’s better for the child to get the natural infection.

In the worst case, this could risk undermining the vaccination program’s effectiveness, she believes. For families navigating Danish healthcare as newcomers, understanding these vaccination choices adds another layer of complexity.

Geographic and Social Disparities

Today there are significant geographic differences in how many choose to pay for a chickenpox vaccine. Data from Statens Serum Institut sent to Parliament’s Health Committee show it’s particularly cities with the most affluent families that stand out in the statistics, while the picture is reversed in municipalities like Lolland.

This in itself can create problems for local infection patterns, Lundgren explains. If vaccination is more frequent in higher social classes, they become protected. But if these children interact in social networks with other parts of the population who cannot afford it, a problem arises where less affluent children have the possibility of being infected later in life.

Overall, the number of children being vaccinated against chickenpox through paid services has increased from 600 children in 2016 to 5,594 in 2025. This growing disparity underscores concerns about equity in preventive healthcare access.

Balancing Program Priorities

Lundgren shares a similar perspective about program priorities. According to him, it’s positive that the vaccine is well known because it’s widespread in large parts of the world. But it hasn’t been presented as an option in the vaccination program until now because chickenpox doesn’t have the highest priority for public health, he explains.

If vaccination begins and parents accept the offer, there must be certainty that some of the other vaccines in the program don’t become lower priority. Denmark’s childhood vaccination program currently offers up to 10 vaccines including protection against tetanus, polio, meningitis, and measles, all provided free to families.

Despite that, the vaccine is not unknown in Denmark. It’s been familiar for years as an option in parts of the world, and the fact that it requires two doses to reach full effectiveness is well documented. The challenge lies not in the vaccine’s safety or efficacy, but in how its introduction would affect the broader vaccination landscape.

Health Authority Response

The Health Authority has sent a written response to the concerns raised by the two experts. Based on the professional assessment, they will prepare a recommendation on whether vaccination against chickenpox should be included in the childhood vaccination program or not. This will address disease burden, including serious cases of chickenpox infection among children, effectiveness and safety of available vaccines, health economics, and attitudes among the target group of parents.

Eventually, a decision will be made that weighs medical evidence against practical considerations. Given that chickenpox infects up to 75 percent of all children before they turn five, the disease’s impact is undeniable. Yet whether that impact justifies inclusion in the national program remains the central question.

The debate reflects broader tensions in public health policy between disease elimination, individual choice, and maintaining trust in established vaccination programs. As Denmark considers this addition, the outcome will likely influence not just chickenpox rates, but attitudes toward preventive medicine more broadly.