US opens Covid jabs to little kids

Vaccines available for under 5s this week

The US has opened Covid-19 vaccines to infants, toddlers and preschoolers. The shots will become available this week, expanding the nation’s vaccination campaign to children as young as 6 months.

Advisers to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention recommended the vaccines for the littlest children, and the final signoff came hours later from Dr Rochelle Walensky, the agency’s director.

“We know millions of parents and caregivers are eager to get their young children vaccinated, and with today’s decision, they can,” Walensky said.

While the Food and Drug Administration approves vaccines, it’s the CDC that decides who should get them. The shots offer young children protection from hospitalisation, death and possible long-term complications that are still not clearly understood, the CDC’S advisory panel said.

The Government has already been gearing up for the vaccine expansion, with millions of doses ordered for distribution to doctors, hospitals and community health clinics around the country.

Roughly 18 million kids will be eligible, but it remains to be seen how many will ultimately get the vaccines. Less than a third of children ages 5 to 11 have done so since vaccination opened up to them last November.

Two brands — Pfizer and Moderna — got the green light from the FDA and the CDC. The vaccines use the same technology but are offered at different dose sizes and number of shots for the youngest kids.

Pfizer’s vaccine is for children 6 months to 4 years old. The dose is one-tenth of the adult dose, and three shots are needed. The first two are given three weeks apart, and the last at least two months later.

Moderna’s is two shots, each a quarter of its adult dose, given about four weeks apart for kids 6 months through 5 years old. The FDA also approved a third dose, at least a month after the second shot, for children with immune conditions that make them more vulnerable to serious illness.

In studies, vaccinated youngsters developed levels of virus-fighting antibodies as strong as young adults, suggesting that the kid-size doses protect against coronavirus infections.

However, exactly how well they work is hard to pin down, especially when it comes to the Pfizer vaccine.

Two doses of Moderna appeared to be only about 40 per cent effective at preventing milder infections at a time when the Omicron variant was causing most Covid-19 illnesses.

Pfizer presented study information suggesting the company saw 80 per cent with its three shots. But the Pfizer data was so limited — and based on such a small number of cases — that experts and federal officials say they don’t feel there is a reliable estimate yet. —AP