American multinational pharmaceutical Pzifer completed its emergency use application to the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to administer its COVID-19 vaccine to children under the age of 5 on Wednesday.
Pfizer said that its vaccine called ‘Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine’ is 80% effective against symptomatic COVID-19 for younger children.
“Pfizer and BioNTech completed a rolling application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for emergency use authorization (EUA) of the 3-µg [microgram] dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine for children 6 months through 4 years of age (also referred to as 6 months to under 5 years of age) on June 1, 2022,” the company said in a statement.
Children under 5 are the last to get vaccines, but it also requires safety measures in place as it is a very sensitive target age group.
“We recognize parents are anxious to have their young children vaccinated against COVID-19 and while the FDA cannot predict how long its evaluation of the data and information will take, we will review any EUA request we receive as quickly as possible using a science-based approach,” the FDA said.
According to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll, a lot of parents are hesitant to vaccinate children as young as 5, with 27 per cent saying they will “definitely not” get their children in this age group vaccinated. Only 18 per cent plan to vaccinate their kids right away, while 38 per cent say that they would like to wait and see before they decide.
[ With inputs from agencies]
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