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Child Vaccination In California: Third Dose For The Youngest?
Photo: FREDERIC J. BROWN / AFP
Biontech and Pfizer may have to use three vaccine doses for their corona vaccine for children under five. An ongoing clinical study will be adjusted accordingly, announced the Mainz vaccine developer and the US pharmaceutical company on Friday. The decision was made because initial data showed that children between the ages of two and five years did not respond as well to the vaccination as adolescents and adults aged 16 and over and as children between 6 and 24 months. Safety concerns were not found, it said. The third dose of vaccine should be given two months after the second at the earliest.
The results expected for this year or the beginning of next year are likely to be delayed.
"If the study with three vaccine doses is successful," the companies want to apply for emergency approval of the vaccine for this age group in the USA in the first half of 2022.
According to the company, around 4,500 children between six months and eleven years from several countries take part in the study.
Children between six months and five years are given vaccine doses of three micrograms each.
That is less than a third of the ten microgram vaccine dose given to children between the ages of five and eleven.
The vaccine has now been approved for children from the age of five in the USA and the EU, among others.
Biontech and Pfizer now also want to investigate a third dose of vaccine for children between the ages of five and twelve.
Around ten days ago, the Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko) spoke out in favor of a corona vaccination for children aged 5 to 11 with previous illnesses for the first time.
But even healthy children should be able to be vaccinated if they so wish, according to a statement from the expert panel.
The European Medicines Agency EMA had already released the Biontech vaccine Comirnaty for five to eleven year olds on November 25th.
lov / AFP / dpa / Reuters