A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel unanimously voted Tuesday to recommend Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine be authorized for children as young as 5, a major decision that will likely make the vaccine available for younger kids by Wednesday.
In a final step, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, signed off on the recommendation hours later.
In expressing support for authorizing vaccines for younger children, members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices talked about vaccination helping prevent coronavirus infections and stopping the spread of the COVID-19 as well as being a key to keeping kids in school and ultimately helping give them more normal lives.
“It’s a big moment,” said Dr. Hugo Scornik, a Conyers pediatrician who leads the Georgia chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. “Covid has had an impact on kids in various ways and while we certainly worry about children getting sick and seriously ill from Covid . . . children’s mental health has really been affected too.”
The committee members questioned data presented by manufacturer Pfizer and the CDC on potential adverse effects from the vaccine, but ultimately agreed the benefits outweigh any risks in this age group. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the CDC reported 8,300 children in this age group have been hospitalized with COVID-19, and at least 94 have died from the disease. Among those hospitalized, approximately one-third had no pre-existing condition that made them more susceptible to the virus.
Georgia has almost 1 million residents between 5 and 11 who are now newly eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine. That’s equal to about 9% of the state’s total population.
Georgia DPH has enrolled 1,760 providers to administer the pediatric vaccine, including pediatric practices, family medicine practices, and health clinics. These enrolled pediatric providers place their orders through DPH, and they will receive the vaccine doses directly from the manufacturer.
The Pfizer vaccine for 5- to 11-year-olds is one-third of the adult dose and will arrive in smaller packages with pediatricians able to get a few hundred doses at a time. Storage will also be easier. These pediatric doses can be kept in a refrigerator for 10 weeks.
Additionally, the pediatric vaccine will be available at other locations including pharmacies, such as CVS pharmacy, which are coordinated on a federal level. The vaccination of this younger age group will likely begin within the next couple of days and expand significantly by the end of the week.
Clinical trials Pfizer conducted in children ages 5-11 found the vaccine to be 90.7% effective in preventing symptomatic COVID-19.
While children who catch the coronavirus tend to have milder symptoms than adults, in rare instances they can have severe complications, including a rare inflammatory condition called MIS-C, or multisystem inflammatory syndrome. As of Oct. 4, as many as 5,217 children of all ages have developed MIS-C, and 46 have died, according to the CDC. The condition is also most common in children ages 5 to 11. Children can also suffer from the lingering symptoms of long COVID.
During a discussion at the FDA’s vaccine advisory committee meeting last week, some members questioned whether every child in this age group really needed the vaccine or whether it should be limited to those at high risk of severe COVID-19 — children with underlying conditions such as asthma, obesity or chronic lung disease.
They also discussed the risk of myocarditis, a rare condition involving inflammation of the heart muscle, which has been reported in some older vaccine recipients. COVID-19 can also cause myocarditis.
No cases of myocarditis were found in Pfizer’s trial involving 2,268 children 5 to 11 submitted to the FDA. But Dr. Leslie Ball, a medical officer at the FDA, said the studies were not large enough to necessarily pick up an uncommon side effect like myocarditis.
Dr. Matthew Oster, a pediatric cardiologist and CDC scientist who presented myocarditis data at Tuesday’s meeting, said the agency has not definitively linked any myocarditis deaths to COVID-19 vaccination, adding “Getting COVID I think is much riskier to the heart than this vaccine, no matter what age or sex,” he said.
About the Author
