FDA Endorses Pediatric Doses of Pfizer COVID Vaccine | USA

WASHINGTON (AP) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday paved the way for children ages 5 to 11 to receive Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.

The FDA authorized child-size doses – just one-third the amount given to teens and adults – for emergency use, putting up to 28 million more American children to be vaccinated starting next week.

One more regulatory hurdle remains: On Tuesday, advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will make more detailed recommendations on which youth should get vaccinated, and the agency’s director is expected to make a final decision soon after.

Some countries have started using other COVID-19 vaccines in children under 12, such as China, which has just started vaccinating 3-year-olds. But many of those using the vaccine made by Pfizer and its partner BioNTech are awaiting the US decision, and European regulators have only just begun to consider child-size doses from companies.

With FDA action, Pfizer plans to begin shipping millions of vials of the pediatric vaccine – with orange caps to avoid confusion with the purple capped doses for everyone else – to doctors’ offices, pharmacies and other vaccination sites. The children would receive two doses three weeks apart.

Although children are at less risk of serious illness or dying from COVID-19 than older people, children ages 5 to 11 have been severely affected, with more than 8,300 hospitalizations in the United States, one-third of those. which has required intensive care, and nearly 100 deaths since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the FDA.