News Update

Advisers meet to discuss vaccines for children as young as 6 months old

Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration are meeting today to discuss whether to authorize Covid-19 vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna for children 6 months to 4 years old.

No vaccine has yet been authorized for children under 5 years old.

As reported by the New York Times, Pfizer’s vaccine would be given to young children in three doses at one-tenth the strength of adult shots. Moderna’s vaccine would be two doses at one-fourth the strength of adult shots.

After two doses, Pfizer’s vaccine was found to be 28% effective at preventing symptomatic infection in young children. The company has suggested that with a third dose, the effectivity would increase to 80%, but that finding is only based on 10 cases out of 1,678.

Moderna’s vaccine was found to be 51% effective at preventing symptomatic infection in babies 6 months to 2 years old, and 37% effective in children 2 through 5.

The FDA has said that those levels of protection are similar to the levels that adult vaccines offer against the omicron variant.