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Monday, February 17, 2025

US expands Pfizer’s COVID booster jab to 16- and 17-year-olds

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1165 days ago
20211210
About 4.7 million 16- and 17-year-olds in the US are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 [File: Mark Lennihan/AP Photo]

About 4.7 million 16- and 17-year-olds in the US are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 [File: Mark Lennihan/AP Photo]

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

CDC rec­om­men­da­tion comes amid in­creas­ing fears the new Omi­cron vari­ant will lead to a surge in in­fec­tions in the US.

The Unit­ed States is ex­pand­ing ac­cess to COVID-19 boost­er jabs, as the coun­try con­tends with ris­ing num­bers of coro­n­avirus in­fec­tions and grow­ing con­cerns over the po­ten­tial spread of the new Omi­cron vari­ant.

The US Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion (CDC) said on Thurs­day that it was “strength­en­ing its boost­er jab rec­om­men­da­tions and en­cour­ag­ing every­one 16 and old­er” to re­ceive an ad­di­tion­al Pfiz­er-BioN­Tech shot.

The an­nounce­ment came short­ly af­ter the US Food and Drug Ad­min­is­tra­tion (FDA) grant­ed emer­gency au­tho­ri­sa­tion for 16- and 17-year-olds to get a third dose of the Pfiz­er-BioN­Tech vac­cine if it has been at least six months since their last jab.

“Al­though we don’t have all the an­swers on the Omi­cron vari­ant, ini­tial da­ta sug­gests that COVID-19 boost­ers help broad­en and strength­en the pro­tec­tion against Omi­cron and oth­er vari­ants,” CDC Di­rec­tor Rochelle Walen­sky said in a state­ment.

“We know that COVID-19 vac­cines are safe and ef­fec­tive, and I strong­ly en­cour­age ado­les­cents ages 16 and 17 to get their boost­er if they are at least 6 months post their ini­tial Pfiz­er vac­ci­na­tion se­ries.”

About 4.7 mil­lion 16- and 17-year-olds in the US are ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed, in­clud­ing more than 2.5 mil­lion teenagers who are six months past their sec­ond dose.

The move comes as US of­fi­cials are in­creas­ing­ly wor­ried that the Omi­cron vari­ant could be­gin spread­ing rapid­ly over the hol­i­day sea­son and dur­ing the cold­er win­ter months, when peo­ple move in­doors and gath­er in groups.

But the ex­tra-con­ta­gious Delta vari­ant is still caus­ing near­ly all COVID-19 in­fec­tions in the US, with the CDC iden­ti­fy­ing few­er than 100 cas­es of Omi­cron in the coun­try so far. Re­gions where ac­tiv­i­ties have moved in­doors for the win­ter have seen some of the biggest in­creas­es in new cas­es, which now av­er­age close to 120,000 each day.

Ear­li­er this month, US Pres­i­dent Joe Biden an­nounced a se­ries of mea­sures aimed at com­bat­ting a resur­gence of the virus, in­clud­ing wider ac­cess to boost­er jabs, free at-home coro­n­avirus tests, and ad­di­tion­al trav­el re­stric­tions.

Com­pli­cat­ing the de­ci­sion to ex­tend boost­ers to 16- and 17-year-olds is that the Pfiz­er-BioN­Tech shot – and a sim­i­lar vac­cine made by Mod­er­na – have been linked to a rare side ef­fect called my­ocardi­tis – a type of heart in­flam­ma­tion seen most­ly in younger men and teen boys.

But the FDA said ris­ing COVID-19 cas­es mean the ben­e­fits of boost­ers great­ly out­weighed the po­ten­tial risk, es­pe­cial­ly as the coro­n­avirus it­self can cause more se­ri­ous heart in­flam­ma­tion.

All Amer­i­can adults are cur­rent­ly el­i­gi­ble for boost­er shots of the three COVID-19 vac­cines au­tho­rised in the US.

The Pfiz­er-BioN­Tech vac­cine is the on­ly op­tion for any­one aged be­low 18 years, ei­ther for ini­tial vac­ci­na­tion or for use as a boost­er. It is not yet clear if or when teens younger than 16 might need a third dose.

Vac­ci­na­tions for chil­dren as young as five be­gan last month, us­ing spe­cial, low-dose Pfiz­er-BioN­Tech shots. By this week, about five mil­lion five- to 11-year-olds had got­ten a first dose.

“The boost­er vac­ci­na­tion in­creas­es the lev­el of im­mu­ni­ty and dra­mat­i­cal­ly im­proves pro­tec­tion against COVID-19 in all age groups stud­ied so far,” BioN­Tech CEO Ugur Sahin said in a state­ment.

COVID-19Pfizer


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