The United States has become the first country to approve mRNA vaccines for children as young as six months old, in what President Biden called a “monumental step.”
U.S. health authorities have approved the Pfizer and Modern Covid-19 vaccines for children five years of age and younger, to the extent that President Joe Biden hailed it as a “milestone” in the fight against the virus.
Thus, the United States became the first country to approve the use of so-called mRNA vaccines for children as young as six months old.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had authorized its emergency use for young children on Saturday, who must have been at least five years old before receiving the vaccine.
But the vaccines required additional authorization from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the country’s leading public health agency, and received it on Sunday.
“We know that millions of parents and caregivers are eager to vaccinate their young children, and with today’s decision, they can do so,” said CDC Director Rochelle Walensky.
Once the green light was received from the FDA, the U.S. government began distributing millions of doses of the vaccine across the country.
Biden promised that parents could start scheduling appointments next week to vaccinate their young children in hospitals, clinics, pharmacies and medical offices.
In a statement, he touted the vaccines as “safe (and) very effective”) and said that “for parents across the country, this is a day of relief and celebration.”
In the coming weeks, with more and more doses being sent, “all parents who want a vaccine will be able to get one,” he said.
The Modern vaccine, given in two doses a month, will be available to children aged six months to five years in reduced doses of 25 micrograms (half the amount given to children aged six to 11 years, and a quarter of the dose for those 12 years of age or older). ).
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is now licensed for children six months to four years of age and will be given in doses of three micrograms per injection, one-tenth of the adult dose.
The difference, however, is that children will receive three shots: the first two three weeks apart, followed by a third eight weeks later.
Therefore, children who receive it will not have full protection for the first few months.
Its side effects, however, have seemed less severe in drug trials than in the Modern vaccine.
About a quarter of young children receiving Moderna have developed a fever, especially after the second dose, but generally do not last more than a day.
About 20 million American children are now eligible, by age, for new vaccines. While children in general have been shown to be less vulnerable to Covid-19, about 480 in the United States in this age group have died from the virus.
The so-called long Covid is also a concern, as is multisystem inflammatory syndrome, a rare but serious postviral disease.
Pfizer has said it expects to apply to the European Medicines Agency in early July for permission to provide its vaccines to children in this younger age group.
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