Food and Drug Administration regulators cleared a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5-11 on Friday.
The shot could be available for young children next week after the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reconvenes to provide feedback, after which CDC Director Rochelle Walensky will presumably give the final green light, according to the Washington Post.
The FDA granted an emergency use authorization for a two-shot regime, with jabs given three weeks apart. Each shot consists of 10 micrograms of fluid, which is roughly one-third of the dosage used in the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for adults.
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After reviewing the findings of a study, the FDA’s advisory committee found that despite the risk of cardiac arrest symptoms from the vaccine, the benefits far outweighed the negatives.
On Sept. 28, Pfizer and BioNTech submitted data to the FDA regarding the effectiveness of the vaccine. Pfizer and BioNTech said the study of the vaccine consisted of 2,268 participants and found the vaccine “elicited robust neutralizing antibody response” in the children. Pfizer and BioNTech filed an application with the FDA to receive an emergency use authorization for the vaccine earlier this month.
Pfizer and BioNTech received full approval in August for its two-dose vaccine for people ages 16 and older. The FDA then released a study by the two companies on Oct. 22 showing the vaccine as being 90% effective for children ages 5-11.
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Roughly 59% of people in the United States between the ages of 12 and 17 have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, with 49.3% of people between the ages of 12 and 17 having received a second dose or being considered fully vaccinated, according to data from the Mayo Clinic.
As of Oct. 28, roughly 66.9% of people received a first dose of a vaccine, while roughly 57.9% had received a second dose or were considered to be fully vaccinated, according to the data.
