THe US drugs regulator, Food and Drugs Administration, has greenlit the Pfizer vaccine for young kids aged 5 to 11, making it the first COVID-19 vaccine for this age group in the country.
The official announcement comes after an advisory panel of experts recommended that the US Food and Drug Administration authorise the Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for use in children of this age group.
The decision makes an additional 28 million kids in the US eligible to get vaccinated against COVID-19, reported Reuters.
The vaccine is said to be available for this age group as early as next week.
Vaccine for Young Kids: The Next Step
Earlier this month, Pfizer had released data from clinical trials that showed the vaccine has a 90.7 percent efficacy against symptomatic illness in children between the ages of 5 and 11 years.
Now that the US FDA has authorised the Pfizer COVID vaccine for 5 to 11 year olds, the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention will also have a committee of its own vote to make a recommendation on the administration of the vaccine.
Although young children are less likely to develop severe COVID, the availability of these vaccines for young kids is said to put anxious parents and health authorities at rest, especially as schools in the US have started opening up, according to the New York Times.
Moreover, Dr. Amanda Cohn, a paediatric vaccine expert at the CDC and a voting member of the panel, was quoted by Reuters as saying, "Use of this vaccine will prevent deaths, will prevent ICU admissions and will prevent significant long-term adverse outcomes in children."
She also added that in the past year, COVID was the eighth highest killer of kids in that age group.
The Pfizer BioNtech vaccine is the first COVID-19 vaccine in the US to be recommended for children in the age of 5 to 11.
So far, only UAE, China and Cuba have approved the use of COVID vaccines for this age group and younger.
(Written with inputs from the New York Times, and Reuters.)