The United Kingdom's Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunsiation (JCVI) has advised against giving children aged 12-15 a COVID-19 vaccination shot until more information could be made available about the vaccine's medium and long-term effects.
"The JCVI's view is that overall, the health benefits from COVID-19 vaccination to healthy children aged 12 to 15 years are marginally greater than the potential harms," Wei Shen Lim, Chair of COVID-19 Immunisatino for the JCVI was quoted as saying.
Taking a precautionary approach, this margin of benefit is considered too small to support universal COVID-19 vacination for this agr group at this time," he said, adding that safety data would be reviewed on an ongoing basis.
Just days prior, the Department of Health had said it wanted to be "Raedy to hit the ground running" after approval to innoculate 12-15 year olds comes from vaccine advisors. In June, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency approved the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in adolescents aged 12-15, noting that its safety in this age group would have to be monitored.
