Ananya Ghosal, MAKAUT(WB)
COVID-19 vaccine is still a dream for children under 12. Although children are not at risk of COVID-19 like adults, their reports are still positive. The delta variant and reopening of schools combined and resulted in a keen rise in pediatric COVID-19 cases that is related to the records in the pandemic. Since the beginning of the pandemic, nearly 6.2 million children have had positive results for COVID-19. Six weeks before October 14th nearly 1.1 million children tested positive. Between January and September, nearly 280 children under the age group of 18 or above died due to COVID-19.
The eagerness of parents, children, and teachers for the reopening of school and students going back to classrooms will affect the infection growth. Vaccination of the children would result in reducing the number of disrupting years in school and reducing the spread of the virus. According to the report Kaiser Family Foundation, the survey provided the data of 34% of parents said they will vaccinate their children of age group 5-11 years as soon as their age group is eligible. In the second set of parents, 32% said that they will wait and watch the effectiveness of the vaccine before vaccinating their child, and the last set of parents, 24% said they will never vaccinate their children.
More authorization on the new perspective, some parents will be glad for adding COVID-19 vaccine in the schedule of vaccination as recent Food and Drug Administration (FDA) review has claimed that the vaccination is effective and safe for children. Some vaccines like Pfizer and BioNTech are manufacturing the vaccine that is authorized for the children under 18 years of age and for the age group of 2-5 the clinical trials are performed. There is a separate trial for the six months children.
The recent work on Vaccines
According to the recent reports, Pfizer declares that they have submitted all of their data regarding their phase 2 and phase 3 trials of their COVID-19 vaccine for children aged between 5-11 years to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In immediate future, Pfizer expects authorization for immediate use of the COVID-19 vaccine as the formal submission has been done to ask for the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) in the children of age group 5-11 years. The FDA will examine the data submitted by Pfizer for final decision. Dr. Gregory Poland is an infectious disease expert and he is also the head of Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine research group. He said about the emergency use authorization approval of COVID-19 vaccine for children of age group 5-11 years old before the end of October or Halloween.
The children or 12 years or above previously have the emergency use authorization of the vaccine. A dose of Pfizer vaccine that was adults got a dose of 30 micrograms and for children, the dose is 10 micrograms that are one-third of the dose of the adults. Just like any other COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer also has a series of two doses, and the effectiveness will increase after 14 days of the second dose.
Dr. Poland also added that antibody responses are not shocking at all, as the doses are much lower but the generation of antibody responses are equal to the people in the age group of 12-18 years old. The kids of the age group of 6 months-4 years will get only one-tenth of the adult dose and the researchers are still working on it. In the case of adults, the doses are 30 micrograms so one-tenth of that is 3 micrograms.
Safety protocols
Dr. Poland stated that apart from COVID-19 vaccination other safety protocols are also important that reduce the risk of any respiratory infections and COVID-19. Some of the safety protocols that should be followed are-
- Wearing masks in a social gathering.
- Maintaining good hand sanitization.
- Quarantine yourself in case you are not feeling well.
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Reference
- Ioanes, Ellen. ‘Pfizer’s Clinical Data Puts the US One Step Closer to a Covid-19 Vaccine for Younger Kids’. Vox, 23 Oct. 2021, https://www.vox.com/2021/10/23/22741702/covid-19-pfizer-vaccine-young-children-5-to-11.
- Balzer, Deb, and Mayo Clinic News Network. COVID-19 Vaccine for Younger Kids a Step Closer. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-10-covid-vaccine-younger-kids-closer.html. Accessed 28 Oct. 2021.
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