The United States authorizes a third dose of Pfizer for adolescents

The United States authorizes a third dose of Pfizer for adolescents

The decision was made amid an outbreak of Covid-19 Due to the Omicron variant and when schoolchildren are preparing to return to classes after the end of the year holidays.

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has also authorized a booster dose of Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine for immunosuppressed children aged 5-11 years. For example, for those who have received an organ transplant.

The decision has yet to be endorsed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The FDA claims to rely on data from Israel, where thousands of children and adolescents between the ages of 12 and 15 have already received the booster dose.

In addition, more than 4.1 million people 16 years and older who received a booster in that country five months after the first two doses have not registered any “new safety problems,” said the FDA.

“Authorizing booster vaccination after five months instead of six may provide better protection against the highly contagious variant of Omicron,” the agency wrote in a statement.

It also specified that it examines the cases of other vaccines.

The United States currently has an average of about 400,000 new cases of Covid-19 each day, a record since the beginning of the pandemic, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University.

Hospitalizations are also increasing but for the moment they remain below the peak recorded a year ago. The income of children suffering from covid-19 also rises.

However, the authorities want the schools to remain open as much as possible. “We are aware that there may be difficulties” to return to the classroom, said this Sunday the Secretary of Education of the United States, Miguel Cardona. But the goal is to maintain “full-time face-to-face learning” because the students have already “suffered enough,” he said.

Source From: Ambito

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