Oxford-AstraZeneca begins vaccine trial for children
Pfizer, Moderna, Janssen have announced similar plans slated for spring
Oxford University announced it started testing its coronavirus vaccine in children as young as age 6 in a move that expands coronavirus vaccine trials to the youngest age group yet.
The Oxford trial will include 300 child volunteers ages 6 to 17, with 240 of them receiving the vaccine co-developed with drugmaker AstraZeneca; the remaining participants will receive a control meningitis vaccine that has been proven safe in children but is expected to mimic similar side effects of a COVID-19 shot, the university said in a statement.
Before the Oxford/AstraZeneca trial, testing had not included children younger than 12. Three other companies — Pfizer, Moderna and Janssen — have announced plans to start trials for younger children this spring.
Only the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines have been authorized in the United States thus far. Johnson & Johnson has a single-shot vaccine that could be authorized in March. U.S. regulators are still waiting for more trial data before approving the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which is already in use in the European Union.
Even with clinical trials for younger patients underway, children are not expected to widely receive the vaccine for months and may not until 2022. Richard Malley, a senior physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Boston Children’s Hospital said he does not expect vaccinations in children to start until next calendar year.
“We really want to make sure they’re safe and well-tolerated in children, particularly when there’s a low risk-benefit ratio,” Malley told The Washington Post on Saturday. Coronavirus has not shown itself to be as dangerous in most children as it is in older adults, making it less critical to race out testing for children.
“The risk-benefit calculus you have to do should lead you to want to do this only if it’s extraordinarily safe in pediatric populations,” he said.
The Oxford trial’s small sample size of 300 children who span a decade in age is meant to serve as a jumping-off point and not the final word on how the vaccine will be tolerated by young patients.