Teens and children may start getting vaccinated sooner than we imagine. At least with the anti-Covid vaccine produced by Pfizer-BioNTech which just today announced the first promising results of the trials underway on young people. In particular, the vaccine was found to be safe and effective in 100 percent of the cases in which it was administered to adolescents, precisely boys who are between the ages of 12 and 15. For this reason, Pfizer accelerates and plans to shortly present new data to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the American drug regulatory agency, for an extension to the youngest of the authorization for the emergency use of its vaccine to two doses.
The phase III study referenced by Pfizer, not yet published in a scientific journal and not subjected to peer review, was 3 conducted on 2,260 American teenagers. The results show that the vaccine elicited strong antibody responses one month after the second dose, even surpassing the antibody responses recorded in 16-25 year olds involved in previous studies. The vaccine is currently licensed in the United States for emergency use in people aged 16 years and older. In the adolescent study, researchers observed 18 cases of Covid-19 among 1,129 participants who were given a placebo and no cases among 1,131 volunteers who received the vaccine.
Additionally, Pfizer / BioNTech specified that the side effects seen in adolescents were similar to those seen in young people aged 16-25. Nothing serious then. Common side effects include injection site pain, fatigue and fever. Participants will now be monitored for two years, both to continue evaluating the vaccine‘s efficacy and safety.
If these results are confirmed, millions of American families could soon return to normal. Depending on what the FDA decides, middle and high school students could be vaccinated before the start of the next academic year, and elementary school children could follow suit.
The news released by Pfizer was greeted with great enthusiasm by experts. “Oh my God, I’m so happy, it’s unbelievable,” said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University. Because while vaccination efforts are accelerating nationwide – so much so that yesterday it was estimated that as many as 29 percent of adults received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine and that 16 percent completed their vaccination course – the United States, according to some experts, cannot hope to achieve herd immunity without immunizing the youngest. Children under 18 make up about 23 percent of the American population. “The sooner we can administer vaccines to as many people as possible, regardless of their age, the sooner we will be able to truly feel like we are ending this pandemic forever,” commented Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Georgetown University in Washington.
Now Pfizer and BioNTech have started a clinical trial of the vaccine in children under 12 years of age, and just last week they started vaccinations in children between the ages of 5 and 11. Scientists plan to start testing the vaccine next week in the youngest children, ages 2 to 5, followed by children aged 6 months to 2 years. The results of this three-phase study are expected after late summer, and the companies hope to make the vaccine available for children under 12 as early as next year. “We share the urgency to expand the use of our vaccine to other populations and are encouraged by clinical trial data on adolescents aged 12 to 15,” said Albert Bourla, Pfizer president and chief executive officer. Moderna is also testing its vaccine on children. The first results in adolescents are expected in the coming weeks and in children aged 6 months to 12 years after the summer. AstraZeneca began testing its vaccine on children aged 6 months and older last month and Johnson & Johnson said it will wait for the results of the “older” studies before testing its vaccine in children under 12. .
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