US approves Pfizer’s Covid vaccine for kids

American health regulators have approved Pfizer-biontech’s Covid-19 vaccine for those between 12 and 15 years of age, making it the first for children.

It’s the same vaccine that is being administrated to people 16 years and older and will be delivered in two separate shots of primer and a booster. In a trial involving 2,260 participants, none of those given the vaccine contracted Covid-19 while 16 among those given a saline placebo tested positive.

Calling the emergency use authorisation “significant step” in the fight against the epidemic, Janet Woodcock, acting head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), said, “Today’s action allows for a younger population to be protected from Covid-19, bringing us closer to returning to a sense of normalcy and to ending the pandemic.”

She added: “Parents and guardians can rest assured that the agency undertook a rigorous and thorough review of all available data, as we have with all of our Covid-19 vaccine emergency use authorisations.”

The health regulator said that Pfizer-biontech Covid-19 vaccine has “met the statutory criteria to amend the EUA, and that the known and potential benefits of this vaccine in individuals 12 years of age and older outweigh the known and potential risks.

“This is a promising development in our fight against the virus,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. “If you are a parent who wants to protect your child, or a teenager who is interested in getting vaccinated, today’s decision is a step closer to that goal.”

Pandemic shows signs of plateauing, says WHO

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday the world was seeing a plateauing in the number of Covid-19 cases and deaths, with declines in most regions including the Americas and Europe, the two worst-affected regions.

“But it’s an unacceptably high plateau, with more than 5.4 million reported Covid-19 cases and almost 90,000 deaths last week,” said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Canada MPS call on govt to scale up aid to India

Canadian senators have called upon the government to match donations made by citizens to assist India as it struggles to tackle the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.

They have also called upon the Trudeau government to support a temporary waiver of intellectual property rights (IPR) protections on coronavirus vaccines and pharmaceuticals necessary to counter the crisis.