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UK: Pfizer vaccine approved for 12-15 year olds

British Medicines Agency extended, on Thursday, June 3, the authorization to use Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine to young people aged 12 to 15, after a “rigorous review regarding its safety”.

“We have carefully reviewed the data from clinical trials in children aged 12 to 15 and concluded that Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine is safe and effective in this age group,” the MHRA executive director June Raine, saying “the benefits of this vaccine outweigh any risk”.

The trials, which involved 2,000 children in this age group, showed “that the vaccine worked at the same level as that seen in adults aged 16 to 25,” said Professor Munir Pirmohamed, president of the Commission for Medicinal Products for Human Beings, welcoming the “results […] extremely positive ”. It is now up to the committee responsible for piloting the vaccination to decide whether this age group should be vaccinated, said the MHRA.

A massive vaccination campaign and reduced restrictions

Country in Europe hardest hit by the pandemic with nearly 128,000 deaths, the United Kingdom has set up a massive vaccination campaign for six months, which has allowed two doses to be administered to half of adults, i.e. over 26 million people and a dose to over 75% of adults, which is almost 40 million people.

Based on three other vaccines in addition to Pfizer-BioNTech, the British vaccination campaign advises against the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine in children under 30, after fears around rare cases of blood clots. After a long and strict winter lockdown, the UK has seen a health improvement that has allowed it to ease restrictions, but it is currently facing an increase in the number of cases, largely attributed to the spread of the Delta variant, d ‘first appeared in India.

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