EMA clears Pfizer’s jab for people aged 12 to 15

BERLIN: European regulators cleared Pfizer Inc and Biontech SE’S Covid-19 vaccine for children ages 12 and up, preparing the way for mass inoculations of younger teenagers across the continent.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is expanding authorisation of the shot, which is already cleared for people as young as 16, it said on Friday.

New York-based Pfizer and Germany’s Biontech said in March that their two-shot Comirnaty-branded vaccine was 100% effective in the 12-to-15 age group in a final-stage trial.

Separately, coronavirus infections in the South Asia region surpassed 30 million on Friday, according to a Reuters tally of official data.

Britain approves J&J jab Britain’s medicine regulator has approved Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine for use, the health ministry said in a statement on Friday, making it the fourth Covid-19 shot available for use in the country.

US looks at travel pass

US homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas says the government is taking “a very close look” at the possibility of vaccine passports for travel into and out of the US. He told ABC on Friday that one of his guiding principles has been “the value of diversity, equity and inclusion and making sure that any passport that we provide for vaccinations is accessible to all and that no one is disenfranchised”.

Waiving patents not OK

German Chancellor Angela Merkel reiterated that waiving vaccine patents during the pandemic is not the right answer and companies need to be encouraged to invest in developing new drugs. “We are talking about sensitive products and we have to make sure the quality assurance remains,” she said.