When Will COVID-19 Vaccines Be Available for Younger Kids?

As the school year gets underway and the Delta variant continues its march through the U.S. population, many parents with kids younger than 12 have the same question: When will vaccines become available for my child? No one knows exactly when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) may grant one or multiple COVID-19 vaccines emergency-use authorization for children younger than 12. But Dr. Robert Frenck, director of the Vaccine Research Center at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and one of the investigators involved in testing Pfizer-BioNTech’s shot in kids, guesses parents will have to wait at least until October. On Aug. 24, National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins said pediatric shots may not be approved before the end of 2021. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] That may seem ploddingly slow, given that Pfizer-BioNTech’s shot was authorized for 12- to 15-year-olds back in May. (Moderna submitted its shot for authorization among adolescents and teenagers in June, but the FDA hasn’t issued a decision yet.) But the research process is different for young children, who “are not just little adults,” says Dr. William Towner, physician director of clinical trials for the Kaiser Permanente Department of Research & Evaluation in Southern California. One major difference: 12- to 15-year-olds received the same vaccine dose as adults, whereas researchers have had to figure out the right amount to give...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 healthscienceclimate Source Type: news