There is no evidence at present that healthy children and adolescents need booster doses of COVID-19 vaccine, the World Health Organization's chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said on Tuesday.
Speaking at a news briefing, she said that while there seems to be some waning of vaccine immunity over time against the rapidly spreading Omicron variant of the coronavirus, more research needs to be done to ascertain who needs booster doses.
"There is no evidence right now that healthy children or heavy adolescents need boosters. No evidence at all," she said.
Israel has begun offering boosters to children as young as 12, and the U.S. States Food and Drug Administration earlier this month authorized the use of a third dose of the Pfizer and BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children aged 12 to 15.
Last week Germany became the latest country to recommend that all children between ages of 12 and 17 receive a COVID-19 booster shot. Hungary has also done so.
Swaminathan said the WHO's top group of experts would meet later this week to consider the specific question of how countries should consider giving boosters to their populations.
"The aim is to protect the most vulnerable, to protect those at highest risk of severe disease and dying. Those are our elderly populations, immuno-compromised people with underlying conditions, but also healthcare workers," she said.
(Reporting by Mrinalika Roy and Manas Mishra Editing by Mark Heinrich)
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When Speaker Greg Fergus tossed out Pierre Poilievre from the House last week, "those of us who have experience as parliamentarians simply couldn't believe our eyes," writes former NDP leader Tom Mulcair in his column for CTVNews.ca
Apple is hoping its latest iPad lineup will breathe new life into its sluggish tablet market. In a pre-recorded live streamed event from its Cupertino, California headquarters, the company introduced the latest versions of its iPad Pro and iPad Air tablets, and an all-new Apple Pencil Pro.
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Ukrainian counterintelligence investigators have foiled a Russian plot to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other top military and political figures, Ukraine’s state security service said Tuesday.
Polish prosecutors have discontinued an investigation into human skeletons found at a site where German dictator Adolf Hitler and other Nazi leaders spent time during the Second World War because the advanced state of decay made it impossible to determine the cause of death, a spokesman said Monday.
Stormy Daniels took the witness stand Tuesday at Donald Trump's hush money trial, describing for jurors a sexual encounter the porn actor says she had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid off to keep silent during the presidential election 10 years later.
The Boy Scouts of America is changing its name for the first time in its 114-year history and will become Scouting America. It's a significant shift as the organization emerges from bankruptcy following a flood of sexual abuse claims and seeks to focus on inclusion.
An American soldier has been arrested in Russia and accused of stealing, according to U.S. officials. The soldier was stationed in South Korea and was in the process of returning home to the United States, but travelled to Russia.
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The CRTC has denied a request by Bell Canada and some independent internet providers for an expedited decision that would prevent large carriers from using rivals' fibre networks to offer their services to customers.
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