Dr. Anthony Fauci discusses timeline for COVID-19 vaccines for young children
Anthony S. Fauci, MD, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, reveals when he believes a COVID-19 vaccine for children aged less than 12 years will be available.
Today, Pfizer-BioNTech, the first pharmaceutical company granted Emergency Use Authorization for a COVID-19 vaccine for those aged 16 years and older, announced that it will be submitting data to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on their COVID-19 vaccine trials for children aged 5 to 11 years by early October. In subsequent weeks, it will be submitting data for children aged 6 months to 5 years old.
As a result, Anthony S. Fauci, MD, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, says that the FDA could authorize shots for this next group of school-aged children (5 to 11 years) as soon as mid-October.
"I believe it will work out this way, that by the time we get to the mid-fall, October or so, that we will have the capability of giving vaccines [to these younger children]," he said earlier today.
As of this writing, less than 40% of children aged 12 to 17 years are fully vaccinated, with children making up nearly 30% of new COVID-19 cases last week alone.1
Reference.
1. Percent of people fully vaccinated and cases per 100,000 population, by age, United States. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Accessed September 14, 2021. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/09102021/images/intro_09102021.jpg?_=14890?noicon
