Vaccines for children still many months away
As adults at high risk for COVID-19 line up to be immunized against the coronavirus, many parents want to know: When will my child get a vaccine?
The short answer: Not before late summer.
Pfizer and Moderna have enrolled children 12 and older in clinical trials of their vaccines and hope to have results by the summer. Depending on how the vaccines perform in that age group, the companies may then test them in younger children. The Food and Drug Administration usually takes a few weeks to review data from a clinical trial and authorize a vaccine.
Three other companies — Johnson & Johnson, Novavax and AstraZeneca — also plan to test their vaccines in children, but are further behind.
When researchers test drugs or vaccines in adults first, they typically then move down the age brackets, watching for any changes in the effective dose and for unexpected side effects.
“It would be pretty unusual to start going down into children at an early stage,” said Dr. Emily Erbelding, an infectious diseases physician at the National Institutes of Health who oversees testing of COVID-19 vaccines in special populations.
People younger than 21 account for about one-quarter of the population in the United States, but they make up less than 1 percent of deaths from COVID-19. Still, about 2 percent of children who get COVID-19 require hospital care, and at least 227 children in the United States have died of the disease.
“It is a significant disease in children, just not necessarily when you compare it to adults,” said Dr. Kristin Oliver, a pediatrician and vaccine expert at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.
Children will also need to be vaccinated in order for the United States to approach herd immunity. Scientists have estimated that 70 percent to 90 percent of the population might need to be immunized against the coronavirus to reach herd immunity, especially with more contagious variants expected to circulate widely in the country.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was authorized in December for anyone 16 and older. The company has continued its trial with younger volunteers, recruiting 2,259 adolescents from 12 to 15 years of age.
Results from that trial should be available by summer, said Keanna Ghazvini, a spokeswoman for Pfizer.
Modernabegan testing adolescents ages 12 through 17, and plans to enroll 3,000 volunteers in this age group. The company expects results “around midyear 2021,” said Colleen Hussey, a spokeswoman for Moderna.
Based on the results, Moderna plans to assess the vaccine later this year in children between the ages of 6 months and 11 years.