EMA says not concerned by New York state data on Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine

A girl receives the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, US, December 5, 2021. REUTERS/Hannah Beier/File Photo

March 3 (Reuters) – The European Medicines Agency’s leading vaccine expert said he was not concerned over recent data from New York state on a decline of protection from the Pfizer and BioNTech SE (22UAy.DE)(PFE.N) COVID-19 vaccine in children aged 5 to 11.

“This study somehow showed lower protection from symptomatic COVID-19 but it is still within the frame of the level of protection that we are seeing overall with the vaccines that we have against Omicron and after a primary series,” EMA’s head of vaccines strategy, Marco Cavaleri, said in a media briefing, adding the regulator would assess the data in more detail.

“We would not be particularly concerned at this stage with respect to these results,” he said. The US researchers said this week that two doses of the vaccine were protective against severe disease in children during the recent Omicron variant surge, but it quickly lost most of its ability to prevent infection in the age group. read more

Reporting by Ludwig Burger and Manojna Maddipatla; editing by Jason Neely

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