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Monday, March 3, 2025

CDC urges Pfizer booster for children ages 5 to 11

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1018 days ago
20220520
FILE - A vial of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children 5 to 12 years old sits ready for use at a vaccination site in Fort Worth, Texas, Thursday, Nov. 11, 2021. Kids ages 5 to 11 should get a booster dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, advisers to the U.S. government said Thursday, May 19, 2022. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File)

FILE - A vial of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children 5 to 12 years old sits ready for use at a vaccination site in Fort Worth, Texas, Thursday, Nov. 11, 2021. Kids ages 5 to 11 should get a booster dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, advisers to the U.S. government said Thursday, May 19, 2022. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File)

By LAU­RAN NEER­GAARD | AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

 

(AP) — Kids ages 5 to 11 should get a boost­er dose of Pfiz­er’s COVID-19 vac­cine, ad­vis­ers to the U.S. gov­ern­ment said Thurs­day.

The Cen­ter for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion quick­ly adopt­ed the pan­el’s rec­om­men­da­tion, open­ing a third COVID-19 shot to healthy el­e­men­tary-age kids — just like what is al­ready rec­om­mend­ed for every­body 12 and old­er.

The hope is that an ex­tra shot will shore up pro­tec­tion for kids ages 5 to 11 as in­fec­tions once again are on the rise.

“Vac­ci­na­tion with a pri­ma­ry se­ries among this age group has lagged be­hind oth­er age groups leav­ing them vul­ner­a­ble to se­ri­ous ill­ness,” said CDC Di­rec­tor Dr. Rochelle Walen­sky, in a state­ment.

“We know that these vac­cines are safe, and we must con­tin­ue to in­crease the num­ber of chil­dren who are pro­tect­ed,” she said.

Ear­li­er this week, the Food and Drug Ad­min­is­tra­tion au­tho­rized Pfiz­er’s kid-sized boost­er, to be of­fered at least five months af­ter the young­sters’ last shot.

The CDC takes the next step of rec­om­mend­ing who ac­tu­al­ly needs vac­ci­na­tions. Its ad­vis­ers de­bat­ed if all oth­er­wise healthy 5- to 11-year-olds need an ex­tra dose, es­pe­cial­ly since so many chil­dren were in­fect­ed dur­ing the huge win­ter surge of the omi­cron vari­ant.

But the U.S. now is av­er­ag­ing 100,000 new cas­es a day for the first time since Feb­ru­ary. And ul­ti­mate­ly, the CDC’s ad­vis­ers point­ed to grow­ing ev­i­dence from old­er kids and adults that two pri­ma­ry vac­ci­na­tions plus a boost­er are pro­vid­ing the best pro­tec­tion against the newest coro­n­avirus vari­ants.

“This al­ways per­haps should have been a three-dose vac­cine,” said Dr. Grace Lee of Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty, who chairs the CDC’s ad­vi­so­ry pan­el.

The boost­er ques­tion isn’t the hottest vac­cine top­ic: Par­ents still are anx­ious­ly await­ing a chance to vac­ci­nate kids un­der 5 — the on­ly group not yet el­i­gi­ble in the U.S.

Dr. Do­ran Fink of the Food and Drug Ad­min­is­tra­tion said the agency is work­ing “as rapid­ly as we can” to eval­u­ate an ap­pli­ca­tion from vac­cine mak­er Mod­er­na, and is await­ing fi­nal da­ta on the lit­tlest kids from ri­val Pfiz­er. The FDA’s own ad­vis­ers are ex­pect­ed to pub­licly de­bate da­ta from one or both com­pa­nies next month.

For the 5- to 11-year-olds, it’s not clear how much boost­er de­mand there will be. On­ly about 30% of that age group have had the ini­tial two Pfiz­er dos­es since vac­ci­na­tions opened to them in No­vem­ber.

CDC ad­vis­er Dr. He­len Keipp Tal­bot of Van­der­bilt Uni­ver­si­ty said health au­thor­i­ties must put more ef­fort in­to get­ting young­sters their ini­tial shots.

“That needs to be a pri­or­i­ty,” she said.

Thurs­day’s de­ci­sion al­so means that 5- to 11-year-olds with se­vere­ly weak­ened im­mune sys­tems, who are sup­posed to get three ini­tial shots, would be el­i­gi­ble for a fourth dose.

Pfiz­er and its part­ner BioN­Tech cur­rent­ly make the on­ly COVID-19 vac­cine avail­able for chil­dren of any age in the U.S. Those ages 5 to 11 re­ceive a dose that’s one-third the amount giv­en to every­one 12 and old­er.

In a small study, Pfiz­er found a boost­er revved up those kids’ lev­els of virus-fight­ing an­ti­bod­ies — in­clud­ing those able to fight the su­per-con­ta­gious omi­cron vari­ant — the same kind of jump adults get from an ex­tra shot.

Vac­cines may not al­ways pre­vent milder in­fec­tions, and the omi­cron vari­ant proved es­pe­cial­ly able to slip past their de­fens­es. But CDC cit­ed da­ta dur­ing the omi­cron surge that showed un­vac­ci­nat­ed 5- to 11-year-olds had twice the rate of hos­pi­tal­iza­tion as young­sters who got their first two dos­es.

Health au­thor­i­ties say for all ages, the vac­cines are still of­fer­ing strong pro­tec­tion against COVID-19′s worst out­comes, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter a third dose.

Some es­pe­cial­ly high-risk peo­ple, in­clud­ing those 50 and old­er, have been of­fered the choice of a sec­ond boost­er, or fourth shot — and the CDC on Thurs­day strength­ened that rec­om­men­da­tion, too, urg­ing any­one who’s el­i­gi­ble to go ahead and get the ex­tra dose.

Still to be de­cid­ed is whether every­one will need ad­di­tion­al shots in the fall, pos­si­bly re­for­mu­lat­ed to of­fer bet­ter pro­tec­tion against new­er coro­n­avirus vari­ants.

___

The As­so­ci­at­ed Press Health and Sci­ence De­part­ment re­ceives sup­port from the Howard Hugh­es Med­ical In­sti­tute’s De­part­ment of Sci­ence Ed­u­ca­tion. The AP is sole­ly re­spon­si­ble for all con­tent.

COVID-19HealthUnited StateschildrenUnited States of AmericaCovid BoosterCovid vaccines


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