US stops COVID vaccines for healthy children and pregnant mothers: All you need to know

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stopped recommending routine COVID-19 vaccination for healthy children and pregnant women, announced U.S. Health regulators on Tuesday.

The United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took to the social media platform X to announce these two vaccinations had been effectively removed from the CDC's immunization schedule. He added how the step was common sense, good science and closer to realizing Trump's promise to Make America Healthy Again. In the post, Kennedy Jr. also attached a video making a statement on the same. Along with him were Director of the National Institutes of Health, Jay Bhattacharya and the Commissioner, of the Food and Drug Administration, Marty Makary.

"I couldn't be more pleased to announce that as of today, the COVID vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women has been removed from the CDC recommended immunization schedule," said the Secretary of Health in the video.

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Kennedy, whose department oversees the CDC has been working actively to reform American healthcare and align it with President Donald Trump's goal of massively shrinking the federal government.

Previously, the CDC had recommended COVID-19 vaccines for everyone aged six months and older. The centre's website also quoted that studies with hundreds of thousands of people around the world showed that COVID-19 vaccines before and during pregnancy were safe for the pregnant woman and the baby. However, in the video, Makary said "There's no evidence healthy kids need it today and most countries have now stopped recommending it for children."

These new changes come in a week after the FDA said it plans to require new clinical trials for approval of annual COVID-19 boosters for healthy Americans under age 65, effectively limiting them to older adults and those at risk of developing severe illness.

The officials also condemned the Biden administration for suggesting healthy children get booster shots "without any sort of clinical data" to support the repeat booster strategy in children.