US FDA authorizes Pfizer Covid-19 jabs for adolescents

WASHINGTON – The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has authorized the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for adolescents aged between 12 and 15 years, the US regulator announced.

“Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration expanded the emergency use authorization (EUA) for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine for the prevention of coronavirus disease 2019 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) to include adolescents 12 through 15 years of age,” the statement read.

“The FDA amended the EUA [Emergency Use Authorization] originally issued on Dec. 11, 2020 for administration in individuals 16 years of age and older,” according to the statement.

FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock said commenting on the announced decision: “The FDA’s expansion of the emergency use authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine to include adolescents 12 through 15 years of age is a significant step in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.”

“Today’s action allows for a younger population to be protected from COVID-19, bringing us closer to returning to a sense of normalcy and to ending the pandemic,” Woodcock said. “Parents and guardians can rest assured that the agency undertook a rigorous and thorough review of all available data, as we have with all of our COVID-19 vaccine emergency use authorizations.”

As of today, the United States is ranked first in the world in terms of reported Covid-19 cases, which currently stand at over 33,515,300.

Up to 596,180 people died of the coronavirus infection, while over 26,507,420 recovered from the illness.

Covid-19 global situation

In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus — named Covid-19 by the WHO — have been reported in every corner of the globe.

On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.

According to the latest statistics, over 159,596,570 people have been infected worldwide and more than 3,317,490 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 137,259,840 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.