In the coming weeks, children below 12 years will be able to receive COVID-19 vaccines as Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) and BioNTech SE (NASDAQ: BNTX) seek US approval for their vaccine in children below 12 years.
Children below 12 could receive the COVID-19 vaccine soon
However, despite the positive news, some parents might be apprehensive regarding their kids receiving the vaccine. However, Oregon Health and Science University’s emergency medicine professor Esther Choo says that the process of testing the vaccine has been standardized and it is reliable. In addition, she said that the process allows for data evaluation as decisions are releases before going from the FDA to the US Centre for Diseases Control and Prevention for final recommendations.
Choo noted, “And so there will be ample time for us to review the data, see what the FDA’s processes is and what the questions are and what the answers to those questions are. But you’re absolutely right. It’s not just getting the FDA approval for that UA. Right now, only about a third of parents say that they’re ready to give their kids the vaccine if it were available today.”
The FDA has set a meeting at the end of this month, and if there will be no questions to push back and the recommendation to vaccinate all children rather than a subset of 5-11-year-olds, then it will move to the CDC.
Approval of vaccines in children could face technical challenges.
Choo added that although the administration is wired to mobilize things quickly as possible, there might be some challenges since this will be a different dose than what was recommended before. The dose was the same for teenagers and adults, so there were not many technical or administrative challenges. However, children will receive a third of the dose, so there is a need for different physical things such as vials and labeling of the doses for easy tracking.
