Daily US Times: In the US Pfizer booster vaccines have been approved by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for people over 65 if they had their last shot at least six months ago.

FDA has also authorised adults who work in front-line jobs and who are at higher risk of severe illness from Covid-19 to get the booster jab.

It means tens of millions of US citizens are now eligible for their third shot.

However, the booster doses are still need approval from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

CDC’s independent panels are holding meetings on Wednesday and Thursday about the issue, and the panels are expected to endorse the move quickly, US media reports.

The panels’ decisions will include recommendations on who qualifies as high risk and which frontline workers should be eligible.

Janet Woodcock, acting FDA commissioner, said in a statement that “health care workers, teachers and day care staff, grocery workers and those in homeless shelters or prisons” should be on that list.

The FDA move is a victory for President Biden. The US president had promised that booster vaccines would be available from this month as long as they received approval from the CDC and FDA.

The decision, for now, only applies to US citizens who have been vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Millions of Americans who received Johnson & Johnson and Moderna jabs will have to keep waiting for further booster approval.

The UK government has announced that it will offer booster doses to everyone over 50 and to other vulnerable people as it heads towards the winter months.

The Czech Republic, Germany and France have announced similar plans for older or vulnerable people. In Israel, boosters are already being offered to children as young as 12.

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