Finn Washburn, 9, receives an injection of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in San Jose, Calif., in November. Now the pharmaceutical firms are looking for authorization to offer youngsters a booster dose of the vaccine.
Noah Berger/AP
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Noah Berger/AP
Finn Washburn, 9, receives an injection of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in San Jose, Calif., in November. Now the pharmaceutical firms are looking for authorization to offer youngsters a booster dose of the vaccine.
Noah Berger/AP
Kids ages 5 by way of 11 who’ve acquired two pictures of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine could quickly be eligible for a booster. That is if the Meals and Drug Administration agrees to a request made Tuesday by pharmaceutical firms Pfizer and BioNTech to authorize their booster shot for youths on this age vary.
The businesses submitted information to the FDA exhibiting that the low-dose booster shot is secure for kids ages 5 by way of 11 and will assist defend them in opposition to omicron. At the moment, boosters are solely approved for individuals ages 12 and older.
The businesses say a 3rd shot for youthful youngsters might assist counter waning immunity that has left different age teams extra susceptible, particularly in opposition to omicron, which is healthier at getting across the immune system.
Some impartial consultants agree. However others stay skeptical that one other shot is required but for youthful youngsters.
“Over time, immunity to the vaccine wanes. And we all know that that occurs in kids as nicely. So the info proper now actually help vaccine and boosters specifically to take care of immunity,” says Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, an infectious illness researcher at Stanford who advises the American Academy of Pediatrics and likewise has been serving to take a look at the vaccine for Pfizer.
Alternatively, the vaccines are nonetheless going a superb job defending everybody, together with youngsters, from getting severely unwell, says Dr. Paul Offit who lead the Vaccine Schooling Heart at Kids’s Hospital of Philadelphia and advises the Meals and Drug Administration.
“It might be that over time, these two doses do not defend in opposition to severe sickness, during which case one might fairly acquired a 3rd dose. However for proper now, safety in opposition to severe sickness seems to be holding up,” he says.
With out proof {that a} third doses affords enhanced safety not simply from an infection however in opposition to severe sickness, he says, “I do not see a transparent motive to offer a 3rd dose now.”
It stays unclear how a lot of a requirement there is perhaps, particularly on condition that case charges are total low in a lot of the nation. There possible can be some mother and father who can be wanting to get their youngsters boosters — the identical mother and father who rushed out to get their youngsters their first two pictures. However that was a minority of oldsters. Lower than a 3rd of children ages 5 to 11 have gotten each of the primary two pictures. And fewer than 1 / 4 of youngsters ages 12 to 17 have gotten boosters.
The FDA will overview the businesses’ case, and will very nicely convene a gathering of the company’s exterior advisers to assist decide. Then the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention would want to weigh in.
