Pfizer expects to publish data from a clinical trial on the effectiveness of vaccinating Covid-19 in children aged 6 months to 6 years at the end of October, US drug director general Albert Bourla told Reuters on Tuesday.
Data on the Covid vaccine for children aged 5 to 11 will come much earlier, he said, as it may be possible to send it to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by the end of this month, News.ro reports. .
“Then it’s up to the FDA to review and then make a decision,” Bourla said during an interview at the 2021 National Health Research Forum of Research! America.
The executive director’s comments come as many parents say they are looking forward to vaccinating their children, especially as schools reopen and the highly contagious Delta version continues to spread. The strain has led to an increase in hospitalizations in the US, including among young children who are not currently eligible to receive vaccines.
To date, the Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech has been approved by the FDA for people at least 12 years old, while vaccines developed by Moderna and Johnson & Johnson have been approved for adults.
On Friday, FDA officials said they were “working non-stop” to support the approval of Covid-19 vaccines for children under 12.
Dr. Peter Marks, the agency’s top expert, said last month that the agency would act as soon as possible to approve vaccines for children under 12 once companies submit data.
“Currently, there are still studies in progress and so the agency has to wait for companies to send data for these studies,” he said on August 23.
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