Latest: Coronavirus in Spain figures (9 June)
12 to 17-year-olds in Spain could start to receive jabs against Covid two weeks before the new school year begins in September.
Speaking to public Spanish broadcaster TVE on Friday, Spanish Health Minister Carolina Darias said that her department will first propose this date [end of August] to the Public Health Committee before seeking consensus among the regions in an inter-territorial health council meeting.
It comes a week after the European Medicines Agency (EMA) approved the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for 12 to 15-year-olds, becoming the first Covid-19 vaccine greenlighted for under 16s in Europe. Individual member states must now decide if they will offer the jab to children. The US and Canada approved the Pfizer jab for adolescents earlier in May.
Marco Cavaleri, the head of vaccine strategy at the EMA, said the 12-15 age group would require two doses with an interval of at least three weeks. He said trials showed that the Pfizer vaccine was ‘highly preventative’ for Covid-19 in children.
‘From a safety perspective, the vaccine was well tolerated and the side effects in this age group were very much similar to what we have seen in young adults and not raising major concerns at this point in time,’ he added.
Carolina Darias (@CarolinaDarias), ministra de Sanidad sobre las vacunas: “Queremos proponer que antes del inicio del curso escolar empecemos la vacunación entre los adolescentes entre 12 y 17 años”.
— La Hora de La 1 (@LaHoraTVE) June 4, 2021
#LaHoraDeLa1https://t.co/QOUmuYCfuJ pic.twitter.com/MQOXmEuqVX
Latest figures (up to 3 June) show that Spain has received 30,127,690 doses of Covid-19 vaccines and that 28,182,345 jabs have been administered. 18,720,164 people have now received at least one jab, representing 39.5% of the population. 9,979,204 people have now been fully vaccinated, which is 21% of the population. In a separate report, we publish the amount of vaccines received and administered for each region in Spain, as well as the percentage of citizens vaccinated per age group: Covid-19 Vaccinations in Spain
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