FDA Committee Recommends COVID-19 Vaccine for Children 5-11 Years Old

COVID-19 vaccines are already authorized for children ages 12 and older, and the shots now have the support of a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expert panel for younger children ages 5 to 11. In a 17 to 0 vote, with one abstention, the committee recommended the COVID-19 vaccine made by Pfizer-BioNTech for the youngest group yet to potentially get immunized against the disease in the US. The committee recommended a two-dose regimen at one-third the dosage approved for adults. The FDA now takes the committee’s advice into consideration before making a final recommendation. If the agency decides to recommend the vaccine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will then detail which specific groups of children in that age range should get vaccinated. (For example, after weighing the benefits of risks, the agency’s public health experts could recommend only children at high risk of severe COVID-19 get the shot.) [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] That was a question the FDA committee members struggled with as well, since the data presented by Pfizer-BioNTech included balancing the benefit of the vaccine in protecting kids from COVID-19 disease against theoretical risks of side effects, nearly all of which have been observed in older children and adults. Those complications include inflammation of the heart tissue, which is known as myocarditis and pericarditis. The committee members also grappled with the fact that, according to data pr...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 Source Type: news