FDA paves the way for Pfizer COVID-19 vaccination in infants

Washington (AP) — Friday’s Food and Drug Administration paved the way for children ages 5 to 11 to receive Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.

The FDA allows child-sized doses (only one-third of the dose given to teens and adults) for emergency use, and up to 28 million American children will be vaccinated as early as next week. You may be eligible to receive it.

Another regulatory hurdle remains. On Tuesday, an adviser to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will make more detailed recommendations on which adolescents should be vaccinated, shortly after which a final decision will be made by the Director of the Authority.

Dr. Kawasar Talaat of Johns Hopkins University said: “Vaccines protect them and protect our community.”

Some countries have begun using other COVID-19 vaccines in children under the age of 12, including China, which has just begun vaccination of 3-year-olds. However, many people using vaccines manufactured by Pfizer and its partner BioNTech are monitoring US decisions, and European regulators are just beginning to consider child-sized doses for companies.

Due to FDA measures, Pfizer has put millions of pediatric vaccine vials in orange caps so that everyone else does not confuse them with purple-capped doses in clinics, pharmacies, and other vaccines. It will be shipped to the inoculation site. Children get two shots every three weeks.

Children are at lower risk of serious illness and death from COVID-19 than older people, but children aged 5 to 11 are still seriously affected, with over 8,300 hospitalizations and about one-third intensive care And nearly 100 people have died since then. According to the FDA, the beginning of a coronavirus pandemic.

In addition, due to the prevalence of highly contagious delta variants, the government has seen more than 2,000 coronavirus-related school closures since the beginning of the school year, affecting more than one million children.

Earlier this week, the FDA’s independent scientific adviser voted that the promised benefits of pediatric vaccines outweigh the risks. However, some panelists said not all young people needed to be vaccinated and preferred shots for people at high risk for the virus.

According to federal follow-up, nearly 70% of people aged 5 to 11 years hospitalized with COVID-19 in the United States have other serious medical conditions such as asthma and obesity. In addition, more than two-thirds of hospitalized adolescents are black or Hispanic, reflecting long-standing disparities in the effects of the disease.

The question of how widely Pfizer vaccines should be used is an important consideration for the CDC and its advisors who have made formal recommendations for pediatricians and other healthcare professionals.

In a Pfizer study of 2,268 school children, the vaccine was symptomatic COVID, based on COVID-19 in 16 children given dummy shots, compared to only three vaccinated children. -19 Found to be almost 91% effective in preventing infections.

Dosages for children have also proven to be safe, with the same or less temporary reactions that teens experience, such as arm pain, fever, and pain.

However, the study was not large enough to detect very rare side effects, such as occasional heart inflammation, after the second full dose, mainly in young men and teenage boys. It is unclear whether younger children with lower doses will also face the rare risk.

Some parents are expected to vaccinate their children prior to family holiday gatherings and the cold winter months.

However, according to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey, most parents do not rush to take pictures. About 25% of parents surveyed earlier this month said their children would be vaccinated “immediately”. However, the majority of the remaining parents were broadly divided into those who said they would wait to see how the vaccine worked and those who said they would “definitely” not vaccinate their children. rice field.

A similarly made Moderna vaccine has also been studied in young children, with both Pfizer and Moderna testing shots for infants.

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The Associated Press’s Department of Health Sciences is supported by the Department of Science Education at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. AP is solely responsible for all content.

FDA paves the way for Pfizer COVID-19 vaccination in infants

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