Pharmaceutical companies have been recruiting for some time thousands of people under eighteen years of age and from several countries to test the effectiveness of their Coronavirus vaccines. They want to test its safety and effectiveness with different dosages and regimens. Although Covid does not particularly affect the little ones, experts consider it a risk to leave them out, both for their personal health and for everyone’s: they could become reservoirs from which the virus can attack again.
Young people make up about 20 per cent of the population in the most advanced countries. The percentage rises to nearly 50 percent on continents such as Africa. But, with the exception of adolescents between the ages of 16 and 18 in Israel, minors were excluded from vaccination plans for reasons of urgency, science and even prudence. Since the onset of the pandemic, coronavirus has been shown to attack the elderly more than young people. The science is also very clear that children are less contagious, get a milder Covid, and are less contagious. Hence, reducing mortality among the elderly was given a priority.
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Furthermore, scientific practice in testing new vaccines is based on prudence. Dr. Alberto Borobia, coordinator of the clinical trial unit at the La Paz hospital in Madrid, says: “We always start with a population between 18 and 65 years old. It then continues with adults with pathologies and those over 65. And when you confirm safety and efficacy, you expand to adolescents, children and you end up with pregnant women ”.
Modern announced last week that it was starting to inject its serum into the 6,750 children in Canada and the United States participating in KidCOVE, the children’s version of its vaccine study. They will target children between the ages of 6 months and 12 years, testing different amounts of the drug.
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Even the American Pfizer he’s already inoculating his RNA vaccine to minors. They included nearly 300 young people between the ages of 16 and 18 in their trial last year. It has now been extended to 2,259 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 15. But this week they began vaccinating 144 children aged 11 and younger. After this Phase I (safety) study, they will extend it to another 4,500 children. Sharon Castillo, a Pfizer spokesperson, says they will extend the trials in Europe. “We hope to have results during the second half of 2021,” he says.
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