[Source: BBC]
The US has authorised the Pfizer vaccine for 12- to 15-year-olds as the US pushes to get the shot into more Americans’ arms.
FDA Commissioner Dr Janet Woodcock said the move was aimed at “bringing us close to returning to a sense of normalcy and to ending the pandemic”.
Some 260 million Americans have been vaccinated but demand has been falling.
Monday’s announcement expands an emergency use authorisation that already allowed the jab to be administered to people as young as 16 in the US.
The risk of children becoming seriously ill from the virus is tiny, health data shows.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), as of this month, 3.85 million US children have tested positive for Covid-19 since the onset of the pandemic, just over 10% of total cases nationwide.
Between 0.1%-1.9% of all child Covid-19 cases resulted in the patient being admitted to hospital, found the organisation’s report.
Children account for 0.00%-0.21% of all Covid-19 deaths, according to the AAP.
The risk of complications for healthy children is higher for flu compared with Covid-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a leading US public health agency.
