Health

Japan to apply third anti-Covid-19 vaccine dose from December

Tokyo, Nov 11 (EFE).- Japan approved Thursday the use of the third dose of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine and will begin to administer this booster injection from next month.

The Japanese Health Ministry authorized the use of the additional vaccine to be administered among the population immunized with the two doses, at least eight months having elapsed since the last inoculation.

Japan plans to begin administering this third dose to health personnel in December and to the elderly population from January 2022.

For now, the new dose will be administered only to those over 18 years of age, pending on the efficacy and safety of the vaccine in minors and children, according to public broadcaster NHK, although 12 to 18 years olds would be eligible as of February.

The Health Ministry will study lowering the eligibility age to authorize the third vaccine dose as soon as possible based on Pfizer’s data.

To date, Japan has not authorized the use of the Covid-19 vaccine in children under 12, although Pfizer recently requested Japanese authorities to use its vaccine in children between five and 11.

Together with Pfizer, Japan has approved the use of AstraZeneca and Moderna among its population, so it is expected that it will also authorize the Moderna formula as a booster dose from March.

Officials say 94.38 million people have received both vaccine doses, 74.5 percent of the population.

The country suffered its worst wave of infections in August, reaching 20,000 daily infections, but since October infections have decreased, in part thanks to the advance in vaccination.

In recent days, minimal infections were recorded and for the first time in 15 months, there were no deaths from the disease on Sunday.

Japan accumulated a total of 1,7 million virus infections since the beginning of the pandemic, with 205 new daily cases throughout the territory (31 of them in Tokyo), and for the first time since July 2020, serious cases fell below double figures and stood at nine. EFE

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