American pharmaceutical and biotechnology company Moderna said on Thursday that it has filed for authorization of COVID-19 vaccination shots for children under the age of 6. The move represents “an important area of unmet need,” according to Moderna Chief Medical Officer Paul Burton.
“There’s no other vaccine, no other therapy, that these little kids can have,” Burton said in an interview, according to Reuters.
“If they do judge the data to be sufficient, I think from a public health perspective, offering it to these children as quickly as possible is the best thing,” he added.
The jab will be the first vaccine against the coronavirus administered to kids under the age of 5. Previously, Pfizer and BioNTech vaccines were authorized for children at the age of 5 and above. However, their clinical trials revealed that those kids between 2 and 4 displayed a weaker reaction to immunization compared to adults. This resulted in the study being extended in order to try out a third dose.
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On the other hand, back in March, Moderna shared the data of its trial. The data revealed that its vaccine was not only safe and harmless, but it also meets the goal of the study, which was the requirement that the vaccine must generate an immune response in children that is similar to the common immune response observed in vaccinated adults.
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Citing the trial’s success, the makers of the vaccine claimed that two COVID-19 jabs had an efficacy of about 37% in preventing the 2- to 5-year-olds from contracting the virus. On the other hand, a 51% efficacy was seen in children between the age of 2 months and 2 years.
Urging parents to get their children inoculated, Burton said- “I do believe that getting vaccinated now should protect these kids: protect them against severe disease, hospitalization, protect them against the long-term effects of COVID. So it makes sense to get vaccinated.”
