When Will Children Be Able To Get COVID-19 Vaccines?
Children develop serious illness or die from COVID-19 at much lower rates than adults, but can still spread the virus.
Photo Credit : AP Illustration | Peter Hamlin
NEW YORK (AP) — When will children be able to get COVID-19 vaccines?
It depends on the child’s age, but some teenagers could be rolling up their sleeves before too long.
The Pfizer vaccine already is cleared for use starting at age 16. That means some high schoolers could get in line for those shots whenever they become eligible in their area, either because of a medical condition or once availability opens up.
Pfizer and Moderna both have completed enrollment for studies of children ages 12 and older, and expect to release the data over the summer. If regulators clear the results, younger teens likewise could start getting vaccinated once supply allows. The Moderna vaccine is currently cleared for people 18 and older.
Researchers started with older children because they tend to respond to vaccines most similarly to adults. Testing even younger groups is more complex, because they may require a different dose or have differing responses.
“Children are not just small adults,” said pediatrician Dr. James Campbell of the University of Maryland School of Medicine. “The younger you get, the higher the odds are that things could be different.”
Children develop serious illness or die from COVID-19 at much lower rates than adults, but can still spread the virus.
“There’s no question: we do want to immunize children,” said Drexel University pediatrics professor Dr. Sarah Long.
Pfizer and Moderna expect to start studies in children 11 and younger later this year.
“It’s unlikely we could get community protection without immunizing children,” Long added. “This is the lynchpin to getting everything back to some kind of normalcy.”
-
What do scientists hope to learn from total solar eclipse in US?
2024-03-28 -
Song lyrics are getting simpler, more repetitive: study
2024-03-28 -
German court rules against Mercedes in emissions case
2024-03-28 -
UK greenhouse gas emissions fell 5.4 percent in 2023: data
2024-03-28 -
French film grooming claims puts focus on child coaches
2024-03-28 -
George Washington University faces $10mn disinformation lawsuit
2024-03-28 -
Climate change is messing with how we measure time: study
2024-03-28 -
Struggling for a can of food: starving Gazans scramble for aid drops
2024-03-26 -
Pandemic accord talks at loggerheads as time ticks away
2024-03-26 -
Racism reducing my desire to play football: Brazil's Vinicius
2024-03-25