The European medicines watchdog on Friday approved the use of Moderna's coronavirus vaccine for children aged 12 to 17, making it the second jab for adolescents for use on the continent."The use of the Spikevax vaccine in children from 12 to 17 years of age will be the same as in people aged 18 and above," the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said, using the vaccine's brand name. The vaccine will be given in two injections, each four weeks apart.The decision by the

The Philippines sent millions of children back into lockdown Friday as hospitals prepared for a surge in coronavirus cases fuelled by the highly contagious Delta variant ravaging neighbouring countries.Nearly half of the 47 cases of the more virulent strain detected so far were locally acquired, the health department said, raising fears of a sharp uptick in infections that have topped 1.5 million since the start of the pandemic."The Delta variant is more infectious and deadly," said

The latest G7 summit was a waste of resources. If it had to be held at all, it should have been conducted online, saving time, logistical costs, and airplane emissions. But, more fundamentally, G7 summits are an anachronism.

Since his son was diagnosed with HIV during a mass outbreak in Pakistan among babies and children, hard-up Shahzado Shar has often been forced to choose between food and medicine.His five-year-old was one of hundreds who tested positive in 2019 after a whistle blower doctor uncovered a scandal involving the re-use of needles in southern Sindh province.The number of patients quickly swelled and two years later the figure stands at more than 1,500, according to data from the provincial health m

China has approved the emergency use of a COVID-19 vaccine for those as young as three, the drugmaker confirmed Tuesday, making it the first country to offer jabs to young children.Since the coronavirus first emerged in central China, Beijing has mostly managed to bring the country's outbreak under control, and has administered over 777 million vaccine doses after a sluggish start.A spokesperson for Sinovac said that its vaccine had been approved for use on children."In recent days,

China has announced that it will allow each couple to have up to three children, marking the end of a strict two-child policy.The change was approved by President Xi Jinping in a politburo meeting, state media outlet Xinhua said.It comes after a census published every 10 years showed that China's population grew at its slowest pace in decades.This added pressure on Beijing to boost measures for couples to have more babies and avert a population decline.Shrinking populations are problemat

Five-year-old Pratham and his 10-month-old brother Ayush lost their father to COVID in April. Days later, at a different Delhi hospital, they lost their mother.Their world had changed and they didn't even know it. They couldn't understand why their parents were taking so long to come home. Relatives told Pratham that his mum and dad had gone out for work.

She was already beyond child-bearing age, but Qelbinur Sedik says Chinese authorities still forcibly sterilised her, part of what she describes as a systematic campaign to suppress births of Uyghurs and other minorities in the tense Xinjiang region.In 2019, Sedik – then aged 50 – says she begged authorities to spare her from being fitted with the compulsory Intrauterine Device (IUD), as previous attempts resulted in severe pain and bleeding.So, community workers gave her no choice but to be s

More than a year into the pandemic, deaths in Brazil are now at their peak. But despite the overwhelming evidence that COVID-19 rarely kills young children, in Brazil 1,300 babies have died from the virus. One doctor refused to test Jessika Ricarte's one-year-old son for COVID, saying his symptoms did not fit the profile of the virus.

What used to be a mysterious new variant first detected in the United Kingdom (UK) is now the most dominant coronavirus strain in the United States (US).And unlike the original strain of the novel coronavirus, the more contagious B.1.1.7 strain is hitting young people particularly hard."(COVID-19) cases and emergency room visits are up," said Rochelle Walensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)."We are seeing these increases i