WASHINGTON – The United States is expected to authorise the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for children aged 12 and up by early next week, reported news outlets yesterday.
Pfizer has applied for emergency-use authorisation for its vaccine for children and teenagers between 12 and 15 years old, said CNN, citing a government official.
“The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) will have to amend the emergency-use authorisation for the vaccine, but the process should be straightforward,” said CNN.
The US FDA is expected to grant that approval by early next week. After that decision, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention advisory committee will meet to recommend how the vaccine should be used.
An FDA spokesman declined to give details on the approval timeline, telling The Washington Post: “We are working to review this request as quickly and transparently as possible.”
The Pfizer jab is currently authorised for people 16 and older in the US.
The pharmaceutical giant in late March said it has submitted data from a clinical trial of 2,260 12- to 15-year-olds that showed the vaccine is highly effective and well-tolerated.
Further testing on younger children is ongoing.
Moderna is conducting trials of its vaccine on teens, with the results expected in the summer, as well as in younger children.
Johnson & Johnson is also planning paediatric trials for its jab.
Expanding vaccine authorisation to include adolescents could open up the US mass vaccination programme to millions more people.
The national vaccination rate peaked around April 11, according to official data, and although 55% of US adults now have had one or more doses, there is still a long way to go to achieve population immunity against Covid-19.
The people most eager to get their shots have, for the most part, already rolled up their sleeves and done so.
But, vaccine hesitancy remains a major obstacle: a large percentage of US adults do not plan to get the shot, and could potentially refuse to get their children vaccinated.
Among Republican voters, 29% said they will never take the vaccine, compared to 5% of Democrats and 9% of independents, according to a recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation. – AFP, May 4, 2021
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