COVID-19: CDC approves Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for kids below 12 years

A White House statement earlier this week announced that the US will commence its vaccination programmes for kids between ages 5 and 11 years from next week. However, it was up to a panel of medical experts to decide if the anti-COVID shots should be made available to all school-going children or not. On Tuesday, the team belonging to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) deliberated upon the same, discussing at length whether the jabs would be beneficial to all 28 million children in the country. A final recommendation from the body came hours after, giving a final clearance to the Pfizer/BioNTech shots. 

At an earlier press briefing, White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients announced that all children belonging to the age group between 5 to 11 years will be able to receive Pfizer/BioNTech doses at paediatrician offices, medical clinics, pharmacies and community health centres. Without revealing a particular timeline for the same, he said the inoculation program would be running at full length. “There’s plenty of supply of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and we look forward to parents having the opportunity to vaccinate their kids,” he told reporters.

Should all school going kids get the jabs?

While the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have given its approval to vaccination of kids against COVID, a sign off by CDC was also required before a widespread inoculation campaign began. For the same, a team of panellists held a debate on Tuesday, wherein they mulled if the vaccination should be widespread or be limited to only the most vulnerable group. Their final recommendations went to the CDC Director Dr Rochelle Walensky who gave a green light for the vaccination to be opened to all children in the age range. 

"There are children in the second grade who have never experienced a normal school year,” Walensky said. “Pediatric vaccination has the power to help us change all of that," Walensky told reporters. 

FDA approves Pfizer/BioNTech shots for kids

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday, 29 October authorised the use of Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11. The FDA further noted the immune responses of children between the age of 5 and 11 were compared with those of individuals 16 through 25 years of age. The Pfizer-BioNTech shots have shown 90.7% efficacy in preventing COVID-19 in children aged 5-11. The Food and Drug Administration said that it studied the vaccine safety in approximately 3,100 children among the same age group of 5 to 11 “and no serious side effects have been detected in the ongoing study.”

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