Approval of Biontech-Pfizer’s corona vaccine for children aged five to eleven in the United States is getting closer: The FDA’s vaccination committee recommended on Tuesday that the vaccine be granted emergency approval for this age group. The experts were of the opinion that the benefits of a vaccination clearly outweighed possible risks – and emphasized that the coronavirus is also dangerous for children.
Younger children would be “anything but spared Covid-19,” said FDA scientist Peter Marks. In this age group, 1.9 million corona infections, more than 8,300 hospital admissions – with treatment in the intensive care unit in a third of the cases – and around 100 deaths were registered.
Risk less than benefit
The experts also argued that the risk of heart muscle inflammation as a result of vaccination is significantly lower than the risk of the coronavirus. Inflammation of the heart muscle known as myocarditis is a very rare side effect of the Biontech-Pfizer vaccine.
“It’s pretty clear to me that the benefits outweigh the risk when I hear about children who have to go to intensive care (because of corona infection), who have long-term effects after Covid, and who are dying,” said Amanda Cohn from der CDC health authority. She and 16 other members of the panel of experts voted for emergency approval of the vaccine for five to eleven year olds. There was one abstention.
The FDA must now decide on the official approval. As a rule, the drug authority follows the recommendations of the panel of experts. Then the CDC health authority has to make a corresponding vaccination recommendation. A panel of experts based there will examine the question on November 2nd and 3rd.
28 million five to eleven year olds in the United States
The US government hopes to start a large-scale vaccination campaign for the roughly 28 million five to eleven year olds in the country soon afterwards. Children in this age group should receive two doses of the vaccine, each ten micrograms. The usual dosage is 30 micrograms each. According to Pfizer, the protection against Covid 19 disease through vaccination is 90.7 percent in five to eleven year olds.
So far, the vaccine has an emergency approval from the age of twelve and a full approval from the age of 16 in the USA. Biontech and Pfizer have also applied for approval of their corona vaccine for five to eleven year olds in the EU.
USA vaccinated 57 percent of the population
In the United States, 57.5 percent of the total population is now fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. For the population aged twelve and over who have previously had access to vaccinations, the proportion is 67 percent.
President Joe Biden (78) has repeatedly called on US citizens to get vaccinated to defeat the coronavirus. In the USA, however, there are many vaccine opponents and vaccination skeptics. In addition, many parents do not want their children to be vaccinated. (AFP)