COVID-19: AstraZeneca vaccine to be tested on children 'as young as six' in new trials

University of Oxford announced Saturday that it will conduct clinical trials of the COVID-19 vaccine on children as young as 6 years old up to 17 to test the vaccine’s efficacy in young people. Researchers will recruit at least 300 kid volunteers for the assessment of the level of immune response the jabs produce in children. The University of Oxford and its partners are expected to commence tests this weekend at Oxford University and its partner sites in London, Southampton, and Bristol. Thus far, the firm revealed that up to 240 kids expected to receive the COVID-19 vaccine and reaming, meningitis inoculation. Pfizer and Moderna, meanwhile have also started enrolling kids aged 12 and above for clinical trials to determine if vaccines could provide children life-long immunity from COVID-19 disease. 

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In a statement on Saturday, the University of Oxford said that it was now enrolling volunteers from the Thames Valley area for clinical trials on kids. “The purpose of this study is to test a new vaccine against COVID-19 in children and young adults aged 6-17 years,” it informed. Further, the university added, “This study will enable us to assess if children can be protected from COVID-19 with this new vaccine called ChAdOx1 nCoV-19. It will also give us valuable information on safety aspects of the vaccine and its ability to generate good immune responses against the virus, in children and young people.” The researchers will randomly allocate participants to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, and will further monitor the health and perform blood tests, and will collect other information about any symptoms that occur after the vaccination procedure. “Participants from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic groups are particularly welcomed to participate in this study,” the university said. 

Child must have ' no medical history'

According to the University of Oxford’s release, any kid will be eligible to participate in the vaccine trial if they resided near one of the centers in Oxford, St George’s University Hospital, London, Southampton, or Bristol. It added, that the child must have “ no significant medical history” and must be aged between 6 years and 17 years and 8 months. “we will recruit a total of 300 participants, of which up to 240 will be vaccinated with the candidate vaccine ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, and up to 60 will be vaccinated with a control vaccine (MenB, Bexsero),” Oxford said, adding that the participants will remain uniformed about their group. “The data from this study may be used to support further larger scale trials in children, the results of which may be used by AstraZeneca to support approvals of this vaccine for use in children in the future,” the release read. 

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