Vaccines said highly protective

BRUSSELS, Sept 2, (Agencies): The European Medicines Agency (EMA) Thursday stressed that all vaccines authorised in the EU are currently highly protective against COVID-19-related hospitalisation, severe disease and death, while about one out of three adults in the EU over 18 years is still currently not fully vaccinated.

The priority now should be to vaccinate all those eligible individuals who have not yet completed their recommended vaccination course, it said in a press release.

To complement vaccination efforts, it is also crucial to continue applying measures such as physical distancing, hand and respiratory hygiene, and using face masks where needed, it underlined.

Moreover, EMA said that based on current evidence, “there is no urgent need for the administration of booster doses of vaccines to fully vaccinated individuals in the general population. It is important to distinguish between booster doses for people with normal immune systems and additional doses for those with weakened immune systems,” it said.

EMA is currently assessing data on additional doses and will consider whether updates to the product information are appropriate.

Morocco has launched a campaign to administer COVID-19 vaccines to children from 12 to 17, becoming one of the first African countries to inoculate that age group.

The World Health Organization says that the North African country has already given around 33 million doses to adults this year. Now, Morocco is focusing its efforts to vaccinate younger people.

“I chose to vaccinate my daughter, because we want our children to be able to go to school,” said Fattouma Chouilakh, whose 12-year-old daughter studies at a middle school in Rabat.

Parental authorization is required and vaccination isn’t mandatory. But those who don’t want to vaccinate their children will have to follow a distance education program and their kids won’t legally be allowed to attend school in person.

Access to good education not just concerns over health — is one of the major factors influencing Moroccan parents’ decisions for their children.

“We suffered a lot of problems with distance education. There were no positive results - that’s why we chose to do the vaccine,” Chouilakh said.

Nationwide there are some 420 vaccination centers that have been made available from Tuesday until Oct. 3.

The campaign, which will use Pfizer and Sinopharm vaccines, is expected to reach about 3 million Moroccan students, health authorities said.