Covid-19: Canada approves Pfizer's vaccine for children below 5

Ottawa: The Canadian health department has approved Pfizer's vaccine against Covid-19 to inoculate children under the age of five, IANS reported.

Xinhua news agency reported that the federal health department said that the available data suggests the effectiveness and safety of the vaccine against the pandemic in the age group of six months to four years. The department updated its website that it approved the vaccine.

The department said that the benefit-risk profile of the vaccine was favourable in the said age group, and it will be administered as a 3-dose primary series. The first two doses will be jabbed three weeks apart, and the third will be eight weeks after the second one.

Pfizer's vaccine is the second one to b approved for the age group by Health Canada, the nation's health department, after Moderna's Spikevax was approved in July.

However, last week, Health Canada approved one adapted version of the Moderna Spikevax COVID-19 vaccine, known as a bivalent vaccine, intending to target both the original SARS-CoV-2 virus and the Omicron (BA.1) variant as a booster dose in individuals aged 18 and above.