BREAKING: The FDA will approve COVID-19 booster shots for children ages five to 11 as early as TUESDAY, despite limited risk to children from the virus
- The FDA is expected to approve Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 booster shot for children aged five years and older this week
- It would be the youngest eligible age group for the additional COVID-19 vaccinations
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plans to approve COVID-19 vaccine boosters for children ages five and older as early as Tuesday, the New York Times reports.
Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine is likely to receive approval this week, making it the first booster shot for children five years and older.
Pfizer’s vaccine is already the only one available to minors in the US – with children as young as five years old being eligible for the initial two-dose regimen – and its booster eligibility now matches that of their starting doses.
However, uptake of the shots in these lower age groups was already low, and the boosters were generally not as popular as officials in this age group had hoped.
Many experts are also wondering if the shots are even needed in children so young, given their little risk of the virus – minors have accounted for about 0.1 per cent of Covid deaths over the past two years – and an increased risk of some serious ones Consequences are exposed to side effects such as myocarditis.
Last month, Pfizer announced that its COVID-19 booster shot could significantly boost immunity to infection in children ages five to 11, increasing antibody levels against the Omicron variant by 36-fold.
The booster shot has the same ten microgram (mg) dose size as the initial two-dose regimen for children within the age group. Recipients of the Pfizer vaccine aged 12 and over will receive a 30 mg injection instead.
However, vaccine uptake in the age group has so far been low, as have many questions about whether children as young as five need the vaccines at all, given they are at much lower risk from the virus.
Around 1,000 children have died from COVID-19 since the virus first swept the world in early 2020, accounting for 0.1 percent of all deaths, according to the latest CDC data.
A University of Utah study last year found that 50 percent of pediatric Covid cases are asymptomatic. The study was conducted before the milder Omicron variant emerged, meaning children are likely less at risk of experiencing any symptoms at all now.
Children may also be less likely to spread the virus if they are infected. A German study found that they release only 25 percent of the virus particles as adults.