The first COVID-19 vaccines for newborns and preschoolers were approved by US regulators on Friday, paving the path for vaccinations to begin next week.
The FDA took action after a unanimous recommendation from its advisory council for the shots from Moderna and Pfizer. That means that children under the age of five in the United States—roughly 18 million children—are now eligible for the immunizations, about one and a half years after the vaccines were first made accessible in the United States for adults, who the pandemic has the hardest hit.
There’s one more step: the CDC will issue recommendations on how to utilize vaccines, and its vaccine advisors will meet on Friday to review the injections and vote on Saturday. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, would provide the ultimate approval.
Walensky claimed her staff was working over the Juneteenth federal holiday weekend “because we appreciate the urgency of this for American parents” during a Senate hearing on Thursday.
Kids Are More Affected by Corona Virus
COVID-19 has resulted in more kid deaths than the flu does each year, according to her.
“She truly believes that we need to protect small children, as well as everyone else with the vaccine, and especially the elderly,” she stated.
The FDA also approved Moderna’s vaccination for school-aged children and teenagers. For those ages, Pfizer’s shots were the sole option.
The Biden administration has been planning to give out immunizations for minor children for weeks, allowing states, tribes, community health centers, and pharmacies to order millions of doses in advance. Manufacturers can now start delivering vaccines nationwide thanks to the FDA’s emergency use authorization. Vaccinations might begin as soon as next week.
According to Medical Express, While young children are less likely to become ill from COVID-19 than older children and adults, their hospitalizations increased during the omicron wave, and FDA advisers decided that the advantages of immunization outweighed the minor risks. Side effects, such as fever and exhaustion, were essentially modest in studies conducted by Moderna and Pfizer.
“We predict that, like with older age groups, the vaccines for younger children will give protection from the most severe COVID-19 outcomes, such as pneumonia.”
