| 
Vaccine approval for kids Canadian health officials made a long-anticipated announcement on Friday: the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for children aged five to 11 has been approved by Health Canada. The first doses of the pediatric vaccine, which contains one-third of the active ingredient of the adult dose, will arrive on Sunday. By the end of the week Pfizer expects to deliver 2.9 million doses — enough for every eligible child to get their first shot. "This is very good news for adults and children alike," said Dr. Supriya Sharma, a senior medical adviser with Health Canada at a press conference Friday. "It provides another tool to protect Canadians, and to the relief of many parents, will help bring back a degree of normality to children's lives, allowing them to more safely do the things that they have missed during the last 20 months." Officials recommend that kids receive two doses of the pediatric vaccine at least eight weeks apart. Global News health reporter Leslie Young has full details on the announcement. 
Travel changes The federal government had another big announcement Friday: starting Nov. 30, fully-vaccinated Canadians won't have to get a PCR test if they're returning to Canada after a trip of less than 72 hours. "With more Canadians getting vaccinated every day, we can move forward, though cautiously, towards a more open border, economy and society," said Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos during a press conference. Also starting Nov. 30, full vaccination will be required for travel within and out of Canada, meaning that travellers will no longer be allowed to present a molecular test instead of vaccine proof. Some medical exemptions will still be allowed. In mid-January, some groups like truckers and professional athletes who were exempted from vaccine requirements until now will also have to show proof of vaccination to enter Canada. A handful of groups will still remain exempted — notably refugees and some agricultural workers. Global News reporter Aaron D'Andrea has the full story. 
Q: What can I expect in terms of side effects when my 10-year-old gets vaccinated? If you’ve had both doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, you might recall feeling tired, having chills or getting a headache after your shot. But will the side effects be similar for young children? The question can only really be answered based on the Pfizer study that looked at vaccinations in children five to 11 years of age, says Dr. Don Vinh, an infectious disease specialist and medical microbiologist at McGill University Health Centre. “The major side effects of that vaccine are exactly what you would anticipate, which is redness and swelling and pain at the injection site,” he said. “Then there are some reports from that study about … broader or more systemic type of reaction. So some have had fever or fatigue or chills or headaches.” The doses for young kids, which were approved by Health Canada Friday, are one-third the size given to adults and youth aged 12 and older. Other than the minor expected reactions, Vinh notes that there were no major side effects reported from the Pfizer trial. “Now, that doesn’t mean that there will never be any side effects once this vaccine is rolled out into the real world of children five to 11 years of age,” Vinh said, adding that more side effects could present themselves once the vaccines are rolled out on a larger scale. As part of its condition for approving the vaccine, Health Canada is requiring Pfizer to report real-world data on any side effects or adverse events related to the shot. Out of the 3,100 children vaccinated, four serious adverse events were reported but they were later determined not to be related to the vaccine, Health Canada’s Dr. Supriya Sharma said Friday. A question around vaccine side effects for young kids is whether there’s a risk of myocarditis or pericarditis, a type of inflammation in and around the heart, that was seen in some young people over 12. There were no reports of myocarditis, pericarditis or serious allergic reactions in Pfizer’s studies, Sharma said. “Right now, there is no signal that at this dose and at the interval of three weeks studied in the children five to 11 years of age, there’s any concern about myocarditis or pericarditis,” Vinh said. “But of course, the world will remain vigilant.” | 
No comments:
Post a Comment