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Advisers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention unanimously recommended the country’s first coronavirus vaccines for children under 5 on Saturday, one of the last steps before Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines can be administered. as many as 19 million children in the United States.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky is expected to approve the recommendation later Saturday, allowing some doctors, pharmacies and other providers to start injections as soon as Monday. Doses began shipping on Friday after authorization from the Food and Drug Administration, which found the two vaccines to be safe and effective.
The conclusion of this long and deliberate regulatory process, with Walensky’s expected final signing at the start of the summer travel season, will be a welcome relief for families who have seen the lack of vaccination among children. as a major obstacle to intergenerational intergeneration. gatherings. Health officials plan to increase public campaigns to encourage vaccination as a weapon still underused against the virus ongoing pandemic.
Advisors from the Centers for Disease Control and Food and Drug Administration have recommended Pfizer and Moderna coronavirus vaccines for children under 5 years of age. (Video: Jackson Barton, John Farrell / The Washington Post)
Pediatricians who placed orders two weeks ago expect the doses to arrive in the next few days. Some anxious parents are looking for quotes for young children who may never have seen the inside of a grocery store during childhood very limited by fear of covid-19 infection. The Biden The administration plans to establish emerging clinics in museums and children’s libraries.
“This is a rare opportunity to be involved in preventing the death of young children,” said panel member Beth Bell, a professor of global health at the University of Washington. “Of course, any death is a tragedy. The death of a young child is an incredible tragedy. We know this disease is killing children.”
Oliver Brooks, medical director of Watts Healthcare Corp. who is also part of the panel, said parents and families need to be prepared for future coronavirus variants because the virus will not go away. “We don’t know what’s coming,” Brooks said. “But I feel comfortable saying that vaccination will be a benefit … Today we have taken a big step forward.”
The advisory committee voted 12-0 to recommend vaccines; three members were absent.
Parents, in consultation with pediatricians, will need to make a decision on which vaccine should be obtained. They can consult the Vaccines.gov website for pharmacies and health care providers who have the vaccine. Pharmacies can give vaccines to children who are at least 3 years old.
The two recently approved vaccines use different doses, a different number of vaccinations and different intervals between injections. Regulators do not favor each other over differences in the way clinical trials were conducted, said Sara Oliver, head of the CDC.
Any vaccine is better than no vaccine, Oliver told the CDC’s Immunization Practice Advisory Committee at its two-day meeting, which concluded Saturday.
The CDC stressed that children previously infected with the virus should still be vaccinated to ensure protection against reinfection. “We know we are not good at predicting which children, unfortunately, will have serious or even potentially fatal results with a [coronavirus] infection, “Oliver said Saturday. Vaccination is the safest way to achieve broad protection against current and future variants circulating, he said.
Coronavirus vaccines can be given at the same time as other vaccines, including the same day, or at any time before or after another vaccine, he said.
Clinical trials involved thousands of children during this winter’s omicron variant wave. Vaccine side effects were minimal (injection site pain was the most common) and were comparable to those seen in other pediatric vaccines.
The FDA authorizes the coronavirus vaccine for young children with likely vaccinations next week
Although deaths in young children are relatively uncommon compared to adults, covid-19 is a leading cause of death among children and adolescents, including children ages 1 to 4, according to the CDC. During the CDC Advisory Panel meeting, Medical professionals emphasized that the disease is serious enough among young people because it should be treated as a similar risk to other diseases for which children are usually vaccinated.
“These clear data should only dispel the myth that this infection is not life-threatening in this age group,” panelist Sarah Long, an expert in pediatrics and infectious diseases at Drexel University, said Friday.
“I want to make sure for all parents and the public that we recommend this vaccine,” Long said Saturday. “All children aged six months or older should be vaccinated [covid-19]. ”
This latest green light for the CDC’s pediatric vaccines completes a historic scientific and regulatory effort that began in early 2020 when vaccine manufacturers rushed to develop a powerful weapon to fight the new coronavirus.
The first shots hit the arms of health workers in December 2020 and during the following year the majority of the population was vaccinated. Regulators also approved reinforcements for the elderly and the vulnerable.
But the youngest group, from 6 months to less than 5 years old, had been left out of the vaccination campaign so far, waiting for research to show that vaccines are safe and effective, and the most critical , it is worth recommending them for babies and young children who are less. likely to have a severe case of covid-19.
6 tips for traveling internationally with children under 5
While most children with covid-19 recover without incident, data released Friday by the CDC panel made it clear that this highly contagious virus has managed to make thousands of children who were so far too young to be vaccinated ill. Children 6 months to 4 years of age currently have higher rates of emergency room visits and hospitalizations by covid-19 that older children, and more than half of younger hospitalized children, do not have any underlying disease, according to CDC data.
The virus has killed more than a million people in the United States, the highest death toll in any nation during the pandemic. Vaccines have helped reduce the mortality rate from infections, as have therapeutic ones, including antivirals.
In recent months, coronavirus subvariants with mutations that evade the antibody-neutralizing effects of previous vaccines or infections have been distributed across the country, and government officials are debating whether and when to reformulate vaccines to adapt. it gets better in new strains of the virus.
For now, the newly approved vaccines are the same as they have always been, with the difference that younger children will receive much smaller doses.
Millions of parents with babies and toddlers have been waiting for these photos, which they consider essential for resuming indoor play dates, birthday parties and other gatherings. with family and friends.
When the CDC advisory committee opened its online meeting on Friday for public comment, Caitlin Komm, a special education teacher, said her 2-and-a-half-year-old son had never been inside. a grocery store or a museum and was learning about the world through books. He said his daughter told him that one day he wanted to go to an aquarium like Curious George. The girl also tests coronavirus on her stuffed animals and says, “Don’t worry, Mom, the coronavirus test is negative,” Komm said.
The impact on childcare has been especially severe. A Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that parents of children under the age of 5, younger parents, black and Hispanic parents, and parents with lower family incomes were more likely to report work stoppages due to the needs of child care than parents of older children, white parents and older. income homes.
Florida doctors say they can now order pediatric vaccines
Experts predict that the initial absorption of the vaccine will be modest, with many parents choosing a wait-and-see approach. Another recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that only 18 percent said they plan to vaccinate their children immediately, while 27 percent said they will “definitely not” vaccinate their child.
States began requesting vaccines from the federal government two weeks ago. By the time the pre-order period closed on Tuesday, states had requested 3.8 million doses of the 10 million doses of Pfizer and Moderna. initially available, according to a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services.
All states except Florida Pre-Ordered Doses. The Florida Department of Health said in a statement Thursday that it was not involved in the “complicated vaccine distribution process.” The department does not recommend pediatric coronavirus vaccine for healthy children, the statement said, a policy that goes against CDC guidelines. On Friday, after FDA clearance and public criticism of the state’s decision not to order early doses, Florida Health officials told pediatricians that they were able to place orders for the newly authorized vaccines.
Both vaccines use the same technology, but differ in key respects.
The Moderna regimen, for children aged 6 months to 5 years, consists of two doses of 25 micrograms each, a quarter of the dose of adults, administered four weeks apart. It was shown to be 51% effective in preventing disease in children 6 months to 2 years of age and 37% effective in children 2 to 5 years of age. Modern has said she is testing a third dose, or booster injection.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, for children from 6 months to 4 years, is three injections of 3 micrograms each, one tenth of the adult …