The vaccine experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend a Pfizer Covid booster shot for children ages 5 to 11 as infections rise across the country and immunity from the first two doses fades off.
The committee voted in favor of a booster. The CDC Director is expected to sign off on the recommendation that would allow health-care providers to give the shots.
Covid infections are rising again in the U.S as more transmissible omicron subvariants sweep the country. According to the CDC, the US is reporting more than 99,000 new infections a day, a 22% increase over the previous week. According to the data, hospitalizations have increased 22% over the past week, with more than 3000 people admitted with Covid a day on average.
According to CDC data, more kids ages 5 to 11 have been hospitalized during the omicron wave than at any other point during the Pandemic. Public health officials are concerned about children developing long-term health conditions such as long Covid and multisystem inflammatory syndrome, which can be a serious condition associated with Covid infection that impacts multiple organ systems.
More than 8,000 children have been affected by MIS-C since the start of the Pandemic, with kids ages 5 to 11 most commonly affected, according to CDC data. In the age group, 16 children have died from MIS-C, 23% of the total reported deaths.
According to the CDC, only 29% of children in the US have completed their first Pfizer vaccine series. More than five million kids in the age group have caught Covid, and more than 15,000 have been hospitalized, according to CDC data.
As cases increase, the immune protection provided by the vaccines against infections has waned off, as more time has elapsed since people got their primary vaccine series. Omicron and its subvariants are good at evading the antibodies that block infections.
In the 5 to 11 age group, the second dose of Covid was effective against infections for 59 days after it was given. In 5 to 11 year olds, the vaccine was effective at preventing hospitalization.
Pfizer presented data from a small group of 30 children ages 5 to 11 showing that a third dose boosted the levels of the immune system. Pfizer did not present efficacy data during the meeting, but Dr. Charu Sabharwal said the increased levels of the vaccine should give real-world protection against the omicron variant.
Most of the reactions to the third dose were mild to moderate, with fatigue and headaches the most common. None of the kids reported a temperature greater than 40 degrees Celsius. There were no cases of inflammation of the heart or myocarditis. According to Pfizer's data, ten kids had swollen lysies, but the cases were mild and resolved within a week.
Pfizer has given 18 million doses of the vaccine to 5 to 11 year olds in the U.S. According to CDC data, the majority of reactions to the vaccine were not serious. The shots caused a number of side effects.
The second Pfizer shot is rare in boys who are 5 to 11 years old, with only 2.7 cases reported per million doses, which is less than the 48 cases reported by boys who were 12 to 15 years old.
20 cases of myocarditis have been verified by the CDC in kids ages 5 to 11 following Pfizer vaccine. The majority of myocarditis patients were boys. The boy who died had no evidence of a viral infection, but he did develop a sore throat, vomiting and a high temperature 12 days after the first dose.
The risk of myocarditis is higher after Covid infections than it is after Pfizer and Moderna's shots, according to a study by the CDC.
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