Children at lower risk from Covid, vaccines should go to poor: WHO
Ethiopian Airlines Cargo terminal workers offload a shipment of Johnson & Johnson's coronavirus disease (Covid-19) vaccines that arrived under the COVAX scheme, at the Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia July 19, 2021. PHOTO: REUTERS/FILE
As children and adolescents are at lower risk of severe Covid -19 disease, countries should prioritise sharing vaccine doses with the COVAX programme to bring urgently needed supplies to poorer countries, the World Health Organisation said on Wednesday.
Some rare cases of heart inflammation called myocarditis have been reported in younger men who received mRNA vaccines - Pfizer (PFE.N) and Moderna (MRNA.O) - but these were generally mild and responded to treatment, it said in a statement.
Read more: Analysis: Country by country, scientists eye beginning of an end to Covid pandemic
"As many parts of the world face extreme vaccine shortages, countries with high coverage in at-risk populations should prioritise global sharing of Covid-19 vaccines before vaccinating children, adolescents," the WHO said.