Moderna will test vaccines on children as young as 6 months
Moderna will begin COVID-19 vaccination trials on young children, the pharmaceutical company announced Tuesday.
The new program, nicknamed “KidCOVE,” will administer a mix of placebos and actual vaccines to roughly 6,750 children ages 6 months to 12 years old throughout the U.S. and Canada over the coming months.
One local expert said the new clinical trials are a positive step for vaccination efforts across the country.
“We’ve made a good start with adults,” said Alan Barrett, who heads the University of Texas Medical Branch’s vaccine research center. “But we have to immunize everybody if we want to reach herd immunity.”
Some sites are reportedly expected to open in the Houston region and, according to CultureMap Houston, a Moderna spokesperson said other local sites could be on the way.
Already, the company has administered doses to 750 chil
dren in Arizona as part of the program’s first phase.
Moderna’s vaccine is one of three that have been cleared for emergency use by federal regulators. Johnson & Johnson has also announced plans to test babies and young children after testing it first in older children.
And Pfizer-BioNTech is researching its vaccination’s effects on children ages 12-15.
Children have been shown to be less susceptible to the virus compared to adults, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, though there have been cases of children being hospitalized or dying from it.
The CDC added that babies with underlying medical conditions are more likely to have severe illness.
The new program is Moderna’s latest aimed at testing children, including one ongoing program for about 3,000 kids aged 12 to 17, which includes about 100 children in the Houston area.
Experts have varied opinions on what percentage of the population will need to be inoculated before the virus can be contained, though many have pegged the threshold for herd immunity at around 70 percent.
That’s still a ways away in Texas, which has routinely ranked among the worst states for vaccinations per capita.
As of this week, only about 16 percent of the state has received one or more doses.
Some doctors have also worried the combination of spring break and rolled back mask mandates could put more children at risk of the virus.
“They definitely are vulnerable,” Jim Versalovic, the interim pediatrician-inchief of Texas Children’s Hospital, told the Chronicle last week. “We need to be safe with our children — in our households, in schools and throughout our communities. We need to be vigilant and continue to promote safe behavior with our children.”
He stressed that parents should continue wearing masks, social distancing and other precautions so as to be role models for kids.