COVID-19: Pfizer jab approved for 12 to 15 year olds by the Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Agency | UK News

The UK medicines regulator has approved the Pfizer / BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for 12 to 15 year olds.

The Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said the decision followed a “rigorous review” of safety and effectiveness in this age group – and that the benefits of having the COVID jab outweighed the risks.

Dr June Raine, Managing Director of the MHRA, said: “We have put in place a comprehensive safety oversight strategy to monitor the safety of all approved devices in the UK. COVID-19[female[feminine vaccines and this surveillance will include the 12 to 15 year age group.

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A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Affairs said the next step is for the Joint Committee on Immunization and Immunization (JCVI) to say whether routine immunization should be offered to people aged 12 to 17. years.

“We will be guided by the expert advisers and update in due course.”

the Pfizer / BioNTech jab was approved for use in the UK for 16 and 17 year olds in December 2020.

The current advice from JCVI is that people aged 16 to 18 should be offered vaccination if they are in a priority phase 1 group or if they are household contacts of an immunocompromised person.

No routine vaccination of under 18s is currently underway.

More than 2,000 children have participated in the clinical trial to determine the safety of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine, said the chairman of the Commission on Human Medicines.

Professor Sir Munir Pirmohamed said on the basis of the data that the benefits of the vaccine “outweigh any risks”.

He added that of the 2,000 children studied in the randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials, there were no cases of COVID-19 seven days after the second dose, compared to 16 cases in the placebo …