The European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced on Monday that it has begun an ongoing review of the use of Pfizer’s Covid vaccine for children aged five to eleven, specifically targeting the BA.4 and BA subvariants. .5 from Omicron. The “adapted” vaccine targets both the original strain of the coronavirus and the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of the Omicron variant, which account for the majority of cases on the European continent.
“The EMA has launched an ongoing review for the use of the Comirnaty Original/Omicron BA.4-5 adapted vaccine, in children aged five to eleven years,” the European regulator tweeted.
BioNTech has also applied
During “rolling review”, the EMA then evaluates the data for an expected next application as it becomes available. This speeds up the process of evaluating authorization requests.
Pfizer and BioNTech announced last week that they had applied to US health authorities for authorization for children aged five to eleven years of a ten microgram booster dose of their Covid vaccine specifically targeting Omicron subvariants, and indicated that a similar request would soon be submitted to the EMA.
The European regulator last month approved this vaccine targeting the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants, but this specific booster dose is for twelve-year-olds. This adapted vaccine is, according to the EMA, more effective than its original version in triggering an immune response against the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants, which are more benign but more easily transmissible.
European health authorities recommended in September that the elderly and those at risk of a severe form of covid-19 be in the front line for the administration of vaccines adapted to the Omicron variant.
Source: BFM TV
