WORLD – A panel of health experts convened by the US health agency will meet to review data surrounding more than 300 confirmed cases of heart inflammation among adolescents and young adults after receiving mRNA COVID vaccines.
The committee, hosted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), will hear a risk-benefit analysis as researchers probe the shots’ probable links to myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle.
This emergency review comes after 11, 323 people under the age of 29 who received mRNA COVID vaccines presented to have heart inflammation in the month of June with 309 being being hospitalized, however, no confirmed deaths has been reported.
Currently the US has Pfizer vaccine authorized for adolescents aged 12 and above and Moderna authorized for 18 years and above with vaccination program in the US currently having approximately 375 million doses distributed and around 320 million being administered.
The country currently has a tally of 33,551,819 recorded cases of the virus and has so far, 45.9% of its population are full vaccinate which is the second highest vaccination rate globally and is closely following Chile that has 51.4% of its population vaccinated.
In Australia, doctors have reported a surge in the number of people cancelling their vaccine appointments, amid a new wave of caution over the AstraZeneca jab.
This comes after the government updated its guidance to recommend only those aged over 60 get the shot, due to the risk of a rare blood-clotting syndrome with the under 60s being advised to go for the Pfizer jab.
Australia has recorded so far, a total of 30,408 cases of the virus with 910 death and is among the few nations where the virus has never truly taken hold.
Though the vaccine roll-out has been undergoing, the process has been marred with a lot of controversies emanating from the fact that it was released earlier than the ideal window release of vaccines.
Skepticism, rare cases of complications related to the vaccines have led to vaccine hesitancy among masses globally with 22.4% of the world population receiving at least one dose of the vaccine according to Our World in Data.
