A new study from Pfizer, focusing on how adolescent teenagers respond to the COVID-19 vaccine, showed promising results.
The company, one of three to have gotten an emergency use authorization for a coronavirus vaccine for people aged 18 or older, said on Wednesday that a new trial focused on teenagers aged 12-15 years old demonstrated 100% efficacy.
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“We share the urgency to expand the authorization of our vaccine to use in younger populations and are encouraged by the clinical trial data from adolescents between the ages of 12 and 15,” Albert Bourla, chairman and CEO of Pfizer, said. “We plan to submit these data to FDA as a proposed amendment to our Emergency Use Authorization in the coming weeks and to other regulators around the world, with the hope of starting to vaccinate this age group before the start of the next school year.”
The trial enrolled 2,260 adolescents in the age range, and it was conducted in the United States. All eighteen of the COVID-19 cases occurred in the placebo group, and none occurred within the vaccinated group.
“Across the globe, we are longing for a normal life. This is especially true for our children. The initial results we have seen in the adolescent studies suggest that children are particularly well protected by vaccination, which is very encouraging given the trends we have seen in recent weeks regarding the spread of the B.1.1.7 U.K. variant. It is very important to enable them to get back to everyday school life and to meet friends and family while protecting them and their loved ones,” Ugur Sahin, CEO and co-founder of BioNTech, said.
The company will be seeking emergency use authorization again to expand their vaccine to the lower age bracket.
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Pfizer and BioNTech said they plan on submitting the results for peer review.
They have a study ongoing to see how children younger than 12 respond to the vaccine. The vaccine is tested on a two-dose schedule approximately 21 days apart, and the age group has been split into three brackets: babies aged 6 months to 2 years old, 2 to 5-year-olds, and 5 to 11-year-olds.
