[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Eun-byeol] Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), said on the 21st (local time) that COVID-19 vaccination for children aged 5 to 11 could be approved within a few weeks.
Appearing on CNN that day, Fauci said regarding the issue of vaccinating children, "Because the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wants to make an accurate yet swift decision on whether to approve the vaccination, we expect to be able to talk about it within a few weeks, by the end of this month or early next month." Earlier, Fauci also stated on ABC on the 19th that vaccination for children aged 5 to 11 could be approved this fall.
He explained, "By mid to late fall, we will be able to see sufficient data to make a decision on whether to vaccinate children aged 5 to 11."
Recently in the U.S., as the Delta variant continues to spread and the new school term coincides, the number of confirmed cases among children has rapidly increased. One in five of the recent new confirmed cases are children, and ICU admissions are also rising quickly. Accordingly, calls for vaccinating children have grown louder, but opposition remains due to concerns about safety and other reasons.
Meanwhile, Pfizer and BioNTech, the vaccine manufacturers, announced the day before that their jointly developed COVID-19 vaccine has been proven safe and highly effective for children aged 5 to 11. In clinical trials, the two companies administered a dose of 10 μg (micrograms), which is one-third of the dose given to teenagers and adults, to 2,268 kindergarten and elementary school children at three-week intervals. After the second dose, the children in the clinical trial showed virus antibody levels as strong as those of teenagers and adults.
Pfizer explained, "The 10 μg dose was carefully determined considering the safety of children aged 5 to 11, their tolerance, and the immune response." They also emphasized that side effects were similar to or less than those typically seen in teenagers, such as injection site pain or fever, confirming the vaccine's safety.
If this vaccine is approved, an additional 28 million people in the U.S. will become eligible for vaccination. The Pfizer vaccine currently has full approval for those aged 16 and older and emergency use authorization for those aged 12 to 15 in the U.S. Pfizer is also conducting clinical trials for children aged 6 months to under 5 years, with results expected in the fourth quarter of this year.
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