When can children under the age of 5 have access to the COVID-19 vaccine?

William Schaffner, MD, MD, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee, said:

Important data on how the vaccine affects children older than 6 months will be released in the coming months.

In September, Pfizer and BioNTech released initial data on vaccine trials involving children aged 6 months to 11 years.they Estimated That important data will be available by the end of the year or early 2022 on the efficacy and safety of the vaccine for children aged 6 months to 5 years.

Throughout the pandemic, children are less likely than adults to react more seriously to COVID-19, but thousands have been hospitalized and hundreds have died.

One reason is that children have lower levels of certain enzymes in the airways than adults.

“Infants have low levels of angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) in the cells of the airways. This ACE enzyme promotes the attachment of coronavirus to the mucous membrane,” said KIDZ Medical Services in South Florida. Dr. Kunjana Mavunda, a pulmonologist, said.

It is less susceptible to the effects due to the low levels of enzymes that accept the coronavirus in the body.

Some children still have long-term effects of the disease.

“Unfortunately, some infants develop severe systemic symptoms after being infected with COVID-19. After that, more deaths or long-term chronicity that can affect the heart, lungs, and brain. It can develop complications, “says Dr. Mavanda.

As the study is ongoing, an important factor for FDA researchers reviewing safety data and CDC panel experts is the complications when a child develops COVID-19 rather than vaccinated with COVID-19. Find out if you are at high risk of illness.

Currently, serious side effects to the COVID-19 vaccine are extremely rare.

Over 30,000 children He was hospitalized for COVID-19, especially in August, when the delta mutant was rapidly prevalent. 587 children He is currently dying of COVID-19.

Some children also have long-term COVID symptoms, or, rarely, pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome or post-COVID-19 syndrome called MIS-C, which may require hospitalization.

Studying children can take longer than adults.

“There are other physiologic aspects that need to be considered when studying the effectiveness of vaccines,” said Mavunda. “Therefore, it will take months more for this age group (children under the age of 5) to have access to the vaccine.”

One important factor in these studies is figuring out the right dose. Children between the ages of 5 and 11 receive about one-third of the dose given to people over the age of 12.

Appropriate doses for children are quite different from adults and need to be accurate to be harmless. “Scientists and medicines are very cautious when conducting vaccine trials, especially in infants,” says Mavnda.

For data from Pfizer and BioNTech the study The proportion of children aged 2-5 and 6 months-2 years indicates that the vaccine is safe and effective. There are many more steps before the vaccine is approved for younger children.

Dr. Schaffner said the current evidence is promising, although complete research data have not been released.

And he said the vaccine was “certainly much safer than developing COVID-19.”

“I expect the use of the COVID-19 vaccine in infants to be very safe compared to other vaccines routinely used in children,” Schaffner said.

September Research More than 1,500 adults found that 23% of parents said they would vaccinate their children under the age of 5 as soon as they were ready, while about 35% disagreed with that idea. bottom.

In general, “it is up to the people who live with these young children to prevent them from being exposed to the coronavirus, at least until they are vaccinated,” Mavnda said.

At this point, worried parents can take steps to protect their infants from COVID-19, and important steps remain vaccines.

“The most effective way to do this is to ensure that all eligible children and adults over the age of 5 are vaccinated with the COVID-19 vaccine. By vaccination, they carry the coronavirus and young children. It can be less likely to infect you, “says Mavnda.