The Netherlands will offer coronavirus vaccines to adolescents

THE Netherlands will offer vaccines against COVID-19 in all children 12 to 17 years old in an effort to prevent a new wave of cases due to the coronavirus strains in the coming months. The Dutch Health Council announced today that children up to the age of 12 will be offered the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19, a formulation approved by the European Commission in May for children 12 years of age. “Taking everything into account, we recommend that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine be offered to all people aged 12-17 who want it,” the council said. Vaccination will help protect children against rare cases of severe coronavirus disease, reported the health council, reports APE.

THE Dutch Minister of Health Hugo de Jongge said last week that it prefers to vaccinate adolescents so that new, more contagious variants of the virus do not cause a wave of infections in the fall. By offering vaccinations to children, the Netherlands will follow suit from the United States, Canada, France, Germany and other European countries that have already started vaccinating adolescents. A total of 15.3 million vaccinations against Covid-19 have been given in the Netherlands, with a population of 17.5 million to give at least one dose to all adults who wish by mid-July. With vaccinations accelerating, coronavirus infections in the Netherlands have fallen to their lowest levels in nine weeks in the last nine months, following a wave of incidents in the first four months of 2021.

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