Prince William and Kate release photo of daughter Charlotte to mark ninth birthday
Prince William and his wife Kate released a picture of their daughter Charlotte to mark the princess's ninth birthday on Thursday.
Pfizer is asking U.S. regulators to authorize its updated COVID-19 vaccine for children under age 5 -- not as a booster but part of their initial shots.
Children ages 6 months through 4 years already are supposed to get three extra-small doses of the original Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine -- each a tenth of the amount adults receive -- as their primary series. If the Food and Drug Administration agrees, a dose of Pfizer's bivalent omicron-targeting vaccine would be substituted for their third shot.
Pfizer and its partner BioNTech said Monday that may help prevent severe illness and hospitalization from COVID-19 in little kids, at a time when children's hospitals already are packed with youngsters hit by other respiratory illnesses.
Few of the nation's youngest children have gotten their COVID-19 vaccinations since the shots were OK'd in June: Just 2% of tots under 2 and about 4% of 2- to 4-year-olds have gotten their primary doses so far, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The FDA has authorized the new bivalent COVID-19 shots -- versions made by Pfizer and rival Moderna -- as a booster for everyone ages 5 and older. Those combination shots contain half the original vaccine and half tweaked to match the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron strains that until recently were dominant. Now BA.5 descendants are responsible for most COVID-19 cases.
The CDC last month released the first real-world data showing that an updated booster, using either company's version, does offer added protection to adults. The analysis found the greatest benefit was in people who'd never had a prior booster, just two doses of the original COVID-19 vaccine -- but that even those who'd had a summertime dose were more protected than if they'd skipped the newest shot.
---
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content
Prince William and his wife Kate released a picture of their daughter Charlotte to mark the princess's ninth birthday on Thursday.
H5N1 or avian flu has been detected at dozens of US dairy farms and Canadian experts are urging surveillance on our side of the border too.
A Canadian restaurant lowered its prices this week, and though news of price tags dropping rather than climbing sounds unusual, the business strategy in this case is not, according to experts in the field.
A 49-year-old man has been charged in connection with an alleged assault that happened earlier this week in Dartmouth, N.S.
Inspections are underway at more than one Loblaws location in Ottawa after complaints were filed about tall Plexiglas barriers.
Archeologists have unearthed the skeletons of five people, missing their hands and feet, at a former Nazi military base in Poland.
Nathaly Paola Castro Torres has a rare disorder called Laron syndrome that is caused by a genetic mutation. It stunts her growth but also provides a hidden silver lining: Her body is protected from chronic diseases such as cancer that often take life away long before old age.
Canadian baseball player Tyler Black made a major splash in his first-ever big league game for the Milwaukee Brewers on Tuesday night.
Guitarist Duane Eddy, best known for twangy riffs on hits such as 'Rebel Rouser' and 'Cannonball,' has died at the age of 86.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.
The lawyer for a residential school survivor leading a proposed class-action defamation lawsuit against the Catholic Church over residential schools says the court action is a last resort.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.