US CDC Backs COVID Boosters for 5 - 11 Year Old Kids: But, Do They Need It?

Not all experts are on board with giving COVID vaccine booster doses to young children. Let's unpack the debate.

The hope is that the booster dose will effectively protect kids ages 5 -11 as COVID cases once again go up in the US 

(Photo: iStock)

Children between the ages of 5 and 11 should get COVID-19 vaccine booster shots, advised the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention, on Thursday, 19 May.

As per the CDC, children who have received their second primary dose atleast 5 months prior would be eligble to get a booster shot of the Pfizer BioNTech COVID vaccine.

The recommendation was made after an expert panel voted overwhelmingly in favour of boosters for this age.

Just a couple of days earlier, on 17 May, the US Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) amended the emergency use authorization (EUA) for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine, green lighting the use of a single booster dose for children ages 5 to 11.

Do Children Need to be boosted?

FDA's decision, however, comes after long winding debates about the need for boosters in this age group.

Even back in January, when the FDA and the CDC green lit boosters for kids over the age of 12, not all experts were on board with the decision.

They argued that there isn't enough evidence to suggest that young kids need booster doses at all.

The World Health Organization's chief scientist, Soumya Swaminathan, at a press conference in January, "there is no evidence right now that healthy children or healthy adolescents need boosters. No evidence at all."

Many stress that children should be vaccinated considering the risk of infection they are exposed to in schools, especially since most adults have now received at least their primary doses.

There is also the risk of long COVID in children. Whether vaccines help soften the blow of long COVID, we don't know yet.

In fact, there is no clear consensus among experts on whether children as young as 5 to 11 years old even need primary COVID vaccines at all. According to these experts, more rigorious clinical studies will have to precede policies.

Speaking to FIT, back in February, Dr Gautam Menon, Professor of Physics and Biology at Ashoka University said, "there is much less data for vaccines in children than there is for adults at the moment. Given that, caution is advisable, and a hasty rollout should not be done."

Virologist, Dr Gagandeep Kang, also talked about how, instead of rushing into vaccinating masses of kids, it would make more sense to focuse large scale clinical trials in children to safely gauge what the best move, as far as the COVID vaccine policy for kids in younger age groups, should be, going forth.

COVID Vaccines for Kids in India: Where Are We At?

To give you a quick overview, currently COVID vaccines in India are available to children over the age of 12.

Biological E's Corbevax for children between the ages of 12 and 14, and Bharat Biotech's Covaxin for kids over 15 are the vaccines being offered currently.

Corbevax, as well as Covaxin were also granted an Emergancy Use Authorisation by the Drugs Control General of India's (DCGI) for use in 5 to 11 year olds and 6 to 11 year olds respectively, although it's yet to be rolled out.