The American laboratory Moderna announced Tuesday that it had launched trials of its vaccine on thousands of children, aged 6 months to 11 years.

Initially, two different dosages will be studied for children aged 2 to 11 years, before the administration of a placebo for other children.

The American biotech company Moderna announced on Tuesday that it had started trials of its Covid-19 vaccine on thousands of children aged 6 months to 11 years.

This clinical trial involves a planned total of 6,750 children in the United States and Canada, said Moderna, which already produces an anti-Covid vaccine for adults administered in two injections separated by four weeks.

Moderna's vaccine is currently authorized for people 18 years of age and over, in North America, the European Union and a few other countries including Israel and Singapore.

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This trial, for which the first doses have started to be injected, will make it possible to study "the safety, tolerance, reactogenicity (production of undesirable effects, editor's note), and the effectiveness" of the vaccine, declared the company in a press release.

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12 month follow-up

First, two different strengths will be studied for children aged 2 to 11, and three strengths (including one even lower) for babies from 6 months to less than 2 years old.

Once the best dosage is determined, other children will be given a placebo, which will compare the vaccinated group with the unvaccinated one.

The children will be followed for 12 months after the second injection.

Further trials of Moderna's vaccine have been underway since December on adolescents aged 12 to 18.

This trial has about 3,000 participants.

Moderna's vaccine is based on a recent technology, messenger RNA.