In a big sigh of relief to parents, the United States will begin vaccinating its children aged 5-11 any time soon as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Tuesday gave its final nod to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
A panel of independent scientists reviewed the available data on the status of the outbreak in children, the effectiveness of Pfizer’s vaccine and its possible side effects during a day of live-streamed discussions convened by CDC.Â
The Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine will be given to kids in smaller doses, one-third of the dosage given to teens and adults. Earlier, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued emergency approval for the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to be given to children in the age group of 5-11 years, with two shots three weeks apart.Â
The Joe Biden government is already well prepared to go ahead with the inoculation drive for kids as it has procured enough doses for the children in the 5-11 age group and beginning to ship them across the country. This will help 28 million children in the United States to fight against the deadly virus.
Coronavirus does not affect children the way they do the adults and are usually less likely to suffer from severe cases of COVID-19, but a small portion of them do. At least 2,316 kids ages 5 to 11 have suffered from the multisystem inflammatory syndrome or MIS-C, a rare but serious COVID-related complication, according to data shared by the CDC at the meeting on Tuesday.
In addition, there have been at least 1.9 million COVID-19 cases in the age group, 8,300 hospitalisations and at least 94 deaths, CDC advisor Dr Matthew Daley told the committee.Â
