30 May,2021 08:16 AM IST | The Hague | Agencies
A teenager receives a dose of the Pfizer-BioNtech Covid-19 vaccine in Israel’s Tel Aviv. Pic/AFP
The European Union's drug watchdog on Friday approved the Pfizer/BioNTech Coronavirus jab for 12 to 15-year-olds, the first vaccine to get the green light for children in the bloc. The vaccine was "well tolerated" in adolescents and there were no "major concerns" in terms of side effects, the Amsterdam-based European Medicines Agency said.
The move will be a further boost for Europe's vaccination programme, with Germany saying it will start giving the jab to children over the age of 12 from next month. The United States and Canada have already authorised Pfizer for adolescents.
"As anticipated, the EMA's Committee for Human Medicines has today approved the use of the vaccine from Pfizer/BioNTech in adolescents from 12 to 15 years," Marco Cavaleri, the EMA's head of vaccine strategy, said.
Until now, the shot made by US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and German research firm BioNTech, had only been authorised by the EU for people aged 16 and older.
EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides hailed it as "one step closer to ending the pandemic", but said people would still have the choice about whether their children should get the jab.
With EU countries trying to expand their vaccination coverage, EMA chief Emer Cooke has said the regulator fast-tracked the approval, which was originally expected in June. None of the 1,005 children who received the vaccine in a trial developed Covid-19, compared to 16 children out of the 978 who received a placebo injection.
President Joe Biden is asking US intelligence agencies to "redouble" their efforts to investigate the pandemic's origins. Biden says there's insufficient evidence to conclude "whether it emerged from contact with an infected animal or from a lab". He aims to release the results publicly.
Facing Taiwan's largest outbreak of the pandemic and looking for rapid virus test kits, the mayor of the island's capital did what anyone might do: he Googled it. "If you don't know, and you try to know something, please check Google," Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je said. Officials are scrambling to catch up as the number of new infections climbed to some 300 a day. Ko's search put him in contact with six local companies who make rapid tests and his government was soon able to set up four rapid testing sites in a district that had emerged as a virus hotspot. Labs have been working overtime in recent weeks but are still struggling to process all the samples.
The Danish government on Friday presented its digital Coronavirus passport enabling people to travel abroad or, in Denmark. "It can be used from July 1 when you can travel within the EU," said Finance Minister Nicolai Vammen.
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