Pfizer and BioNTech Tuesday requested emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration for a booster shot of their Covid-19 vaccine for kids aged 5-11, in the latest effort to extend protection to younger children who have been put at greater risk of hospitalization by the omicron variant.
A child is getting a vaccine.
The booster shot created a strong immune response in kids without introducing new safety risks, according to data submitted by the companies.
The European Medicines Agency and other international regulatory agencies will be receiving data from Pfizer and BioNTech in the next few weeks.
The FDA has given the go-ahead for Pfizer to give a booster shot to children with immune disorders.
According to data from the New York State Department of Health, the effectiveness of Pfizer's two-dose vaccine course waned rapidly for children in New York during the Omicron surge. The FDA authorized a Pfizer-BioNTech booster shot for kids on January 3, saying it could help combat the omicron variant, which caused a fourfold increase in child hospitalizations. According to the study, Omicron is more likely to cause upper airway infections in children than other coronaviruses. Public health officials have worked to expand Covid-19 treatments for young children. The first Covid-19 treatment fully approved for children under 12 was remdesivir, which was approved by the FDA on April 25. Eli Lilly's bamlanivimab was one of the treatments that had received a more conditional emergency use authorization.
The CDC says that 85% of kids hospitalized with covid were unvaccinated.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
