RNA vaccines

Australia on Dec. 5 cleared the first COVID-19 vaccine for children aged five to 11, with the next stage of its vaccine rollout expected to start in early 2022.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said medical regulators had granted provisional approval for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to be administered to younger children for the first time.

The head of drugmaker Moderna said Covid-19 vaccines were unlikely to be as effective against the coronavirus Omicron variant as before, raising new concerns in financial markets about the trajectory of the pandemic, Reuters reported.

BioNTech has begun work on a vaccine specifically for the new variant of the coronavirus Omicron, which was first identified in South Africa.

The development of an adapted vaccine is part of the standard procedure.

The first steps for a possible new vaccine are carried out in parallel with the assessment of whether one will be needed after the advent of Omicron.

Will the vaccines stop the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, the New York Times asks. The new version raises new concerns, because if it turns out that the existing vaccines do not affect it, they will have to be modified, the American publication notes.

Ljubljana – Slovenia’s national advisory committee on immunization has decided to recommend a booster shot of a vaccine against Covid-19 to all adults, that is everyone aged 18 or over.

Biontech says it expects to have more data within two weeks to help determine whether the coronavirus vaccine, which it co-developed with Pfizer, needs to be reworked because of a new version of the coronavirus discovered in South Africa.

Pfizer and Biontech have said they expect to be able to deliver a possible new vaccine made for the new version in about 100 days, if necessary.

The Commission for Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EDA) has recommended that the use of the Comirnaty vaccine by Biontech / Pfizer against COVID-19 be given to children aged 5 to 11 years.

The vaccine is already used on children that are 12 years old.

A study published in the British Medical Journal found a gradual increase in the risk of COVID-19 on the 19th day after taking a second dose of the Pfizer / Biontech vaccine against the new coronavirus, Medical Express reported.

In the spring at the latest, everyone living in Germany will be immune to the disease. They will either be vaccinated, recovered, or dead. This was stated today at a press conference by the Minister of Health Jens Spahn.

On Friday, the EU medicines supervisor said countries could use Merck's covid pill in emergencies caused by the growing number of cases before treatment is officially approved across the bloc.