The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced Wednesday that it authorized a COVID-19 vaccine booster shot targeted at the Omicron variant for children as young as 5 years old.
According to an FDA press release, the Moderna or Pfizer Omicron booster can be administered to children at least two months after the completion of the primary vaccine doses or after their initial booster shot. The mRNA in the vaccines targeted at Omicron contain a specific component of genetic material that “instructs” cells in the body to make a “spike” protein of the initial virus strain and the Omicron variant lineages BA.4 and BA.5.
“Since children have gone back to school in person and people are resuming pre-pandemic behaviors and activities, there is the potential for increased risk of exposure to the virus that causes COVID-19. Vaccination remains the most effective measure to prevent the severe consequences of COVID-19, including hospitalization and death,” said Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., in a statement Wednesday.
“While it has largely been the case that COVID-19 tends to be less severe in children than adults, as the various waves of COVID-19 have occurred, more children have gotten sick with the disease and have been hospitalized,” he added.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still has to issue its recommendations before pharmacies can administer the new shots to kids, CNBC reported. The CDC’s advisory committee will convene next week where vaccine experts will review the available booster data.
I can’t wrap my head around the FDA authorizing a new booster for kids without ANY clinical pediatric data demonstrating risk/benefit.
— Nicole Saphier, MD (@NBSaphierMD) October 12, 2022
It will be interesting to see if the CDC embraces boosters universally for kids or tailor it based on risk, as it should have done all along.
A recent Kaiser Family Foundation study showed that 19 percent of parents with children ages 6 months through 4 years report getting their child vaccinated. On the other hand, a majority of parents (53 percent) said they’re child in this age group will “definitely not” get vaccinated. Eight percent of parents said they would only get their child this young vaccinated “if required” by school.
In addition, 46 percent of parents with children ages 5 to 11 said their child has gotten vaccinated. More than a third of parents said they will “definitely not” get their child vaccinated. The poll was conducted from Sept. 15 to 26 of 1,534 parents.