New York state data on Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine has EMA unconcerned

The chief vaccine specialist at the European Medicines Agency said he was unconcerned by new data from New York state showing a reduction in protection from the Pfizer and BioNTech SE COVID-19 vaccine in children aged 5 to 11. “This study 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 press conference.

“We would not be particularly concerned at this stage with respect to these results,” he said. Two doses of the vaccine were protective against severe sickness in children during the recent Omicron variant spike, according to US researchers, but it swiftly lost much of its efficacy to prevent infection in that age range.