The American biotechnology company Moderna, whose serum has been authorized in France since January 8, has started trials of its vaccine against Covid-19 on thousands of children aged 6 months to 11 years.
This clinical trial involves a planned total of 6,750 children in the United States and Canada, said the company, which already produces an anti-Covid vaccine for adults administered in two injections separated by four weeks and based on recent technology, l 'Messenger RNA.
This vaccine is effective against the British and South African variants.
Moderna's vaccine is currently authorized for people 18 years of age and over, in North America, the European Union and a few other countries including Israel and Singapore.
Two dosages according to age
This test, for which the first doses have started to be injected, will allow studying "the safety, tolerance, reactogenicity (production of adverse effects, editor's note), and effectiveness" of the vaccine, according to the biotechnology company .
First, two different strengths will be studied for children aged 2 to 11, and three strengths (including one even lower) for babies from 6 months to less than 2 years old.
Once the best dosage is determined, other children will be given a placebo, which will compare the vaccinated group with the unvaccinated one.
The children will be followed for 12 months after the second injection.
Further trials of Moderna's vaccine have been underway since December on adolescents aged 12 to 18.
This trial has about 3000 participants.
