(Adds ministry statement, background)
By Elida Moreno
PANAMA CITY, July 12 (Reuters) - Panama's Health Ministry
said on Monday it would allow emergency use of the Pfizer
Inc-BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19 for
children aged 12 years and older but gave no details on when it
would start.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is already authorized for those
older than 16.
The ministry said in a statement that authorization of the
vaccine for children from 12 to 16 was based on data showing it
was effective for that age group as well as for adults.
Since January, Panama has administered 1.7 million doses of
vaccines by Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca.
The country plans to acquire a total of 9 million doses from
those pharmaceutical companies.
So far, the Central American nation has reported 416,232
confirmed COVID-19 infections and 6,646 deaths, according to
Health Ministry data.
(Reporting by Elida Moreno in Panama City; Additional reporting
by Adriana Barrera in Mexico City; Writing by Stefanie
Eschenbacher; Editing by Sandra Maler and Peter Cooney)