White House reviews authorisation of Moderna COVID shot for children under 5 years

The White House COVID-19 response coordinator, Dr. Ashish Jha says he expects the United States Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decision on authorizing Moderna’s vaccine for children under the age of five within the next few weeks.

Moderna completed its application and FDA experts are looking closely at the data. Jha says the analysis is likely to be completed in the next few weeks and that a final decision would follow a meeting of the agency’s expert advisers.

Jha adds that he expects more cases of Monkeypox in the next few days, but that the United States is equipped to handle the virus because treatments and vaccines for it are available.

A large outbreak of Monkeypox outside of Africa, where it is typically found, has caused concern among health experts. So far there have been 92 confirmed cases in areas not endemic to the virus – mostly in Europe – with one in the United States.

“I am confident we’re going be able to keep our arms around it, but we’re going to track it very closely and use the tools. We have to make sure that we continue to prevent further spread and take care of the people who get infected.” says Jha.

Watch- WHO says about 80 cases of monkeypox confirmed in 11 countries