The advice is the first to address COVID-19 vaccines for younger children
Alice ParkCOVID-19 vaccines are already authorized for children ages 12 and older, and the shots now have the support of a U.S. Food and Drug Administration expert panel for younger children ages 5 to 11.
That was a question the FDA committee members struggled with as well, since the data presented by Pfizer-BioNTech included balancing the benefit of the vaccine in protecting kids from COVID-19 disease against theoretical risks of side effects, nearly all of which have been observed in older children and adults.
The committee agreed that children with underlying health conditions, including obesity and chronic diseases like diabetes, would benefit from vaccination. But for otherwise healthy children, the balance wasn’t as clear—given, as Kurilla noted, the relatively high proportion of children who might already have immunity from natural infection, as well as the potential risk of myocarditis.
Still, overall the FDA concluded that the potential longer term risks of COVID-19 infection, including Long COVID, may tip the balance in favor of vaccination. “To me, the question is pretty clear. We don’t want children dying of COVID-19 even if there are far fewer children than adults affected by the disease, and we don’t want them in the ICU,” said Dr. Amanda Cohn, chief medical officer at the National Center for Immunizations and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC.
Children, and especially younger children, are the last group to be vaccinated against COVID-19, following the elderly, adults and adolescents. As more people in the U.S. have been vaccinated, rates of new infections have declined, along with hospitalizations and deaths from the disease. But infections and disease are climbing among the youngest children, highlighting the need to vaccinate them quickly.