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COVID-19: Canada Responds
Health Canada Approves Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine for Children 12 and Older
In a virtual news conference, Dr. Supriya Sharma, chief medical adviser with Health Canada, and Dr. Marc Berthiaume, director of the Bureau of Medical Science at Health Canada, provide an update on regulatory authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. They announce that the agency has approved administering the vaccine to children ages 12 to 15. Pfizer is the first COVID-19 vaccine to be authorized for use with this age group in Canada. Health Canada had initially approved the use of the vaccine for people 16 years of age and older. Drs. Sharma and Berthiaume face questions about vaccine messaging after recent advice from a federal vaccine advisory panel raised concerns. At a briefing held on May 3, officials from Canada's National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) suggested that Pfizer and Moderna were the preferred COVID-19 vaccines over Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca for people at low-risk of COVID-19. (May 5, 2021)