Pharmaceutical company Pfizer has begun its COVID vaccine clinical trials for children under the age of eleven it announced on Thursday. Three different dosing levels are being tested for this age group according to the information given on clinicaltrials.gov.

In a statement given to AFP, Pfizer said, “Together with our partner BioNTech, we have dosed the first healthy children in a global Phase 1/2/3 continuous study to further evaluate the safety, tolerability, and immunogenicity of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.”

Further, it said, “We are proud to start this much needed study for children and families eagerly awaiting a possible vaccine option.”

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Under the US emergency authorization granted to the company, it is vaccinating individuals aged 16 and above. It is also testing the vaccine in children in the 12-15 years age group. 

There are about 330 million youngsters under the age of 18 in the United States, reported AFP. 

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Pfizer and Moderna are already testing their vaccine in children and Johnson & Johnson are expected to follow suit. 

Even though children have been observed to generally have a greater immunity against COVID-19, some rare cases have serious health implications and deaths. An inflammatory condition called MIS-C has also been diagnosed post-infection, reported AFP.