The United States will soon launch vaccination for children aged 5 to 11, despite the reluctance of many parents. On Tuesday, federal health authorities are expected to give the green light to this new step.
After a committee of experts from the FDA, the American Medicines Agency which is the benchmark in the world, gave its authorization to vaccinate children 5 to 11 years old with the anti-Covid vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech, a second Federal authorization should kick off this new campaign.
The expansion of vaccination to this age category should be done this week in the country after the authorization of the Centers for the prevention and fight against diseases (CDC) whose recommendations are expected in the evening.
The government did not wait to have the approval of these two health organizations since it has already acquired new stocks of vaccine doses reserved for the 28 million American children of this age group. And these stocks have already been distributed to the various states.
“We are planning vaccinations towards the end of the week, but the campaign (…) will reach full capacity the week of November 8,” said Jeff Zients, the White House pandemic coordinator, on Monday.
Since FDA clearance, “there hasn’t been a time when teams haven’t picked up, packaged, and shipped vaccines,” he said, not waiting for the CDC’s recommendation. .
The agreement of the latter is however obligatory since the vaccines are distributed by the American public services. On Tuesday, the CDC convened a committee of independent scientists on Tuesday to discuss all of the data on children that age.
A concern is at the center of the debates, that of the risks of myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, detected in adolescents and young adults, especially men, after vaccination with the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.
US health authorities have confirmed nearly 880 cases in those under the age of 30 (more than 600 remain to be evaluated), of which about 830 required hospitalization.
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