Is there already a Covid-19 vaccine that can be given to children under the age of twelve?
Eva Sleeper
Editor in the "Life" section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
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Lucia Schmidt
Editor in the "Life" section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
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No, no vaccine has yet been developed and approved for children under the age of twelve, but the good news is: at least the manufacturers BioNTech / Pfizer and Moderna are working flat out to ensure that even the youngest can soon be protected by a spade.
When does an approved vaccine come out?
BioNTech / Pfizer and Moderna probably began months ago to carry out studies on younger children - in fact, on children between the ages of six months and eleven years.
Pfizer and BioNTech say they expect final results to be in very soon, by September.
Depending on what these showed, “an emergency approval in the USA or a change in the conditional marketing approval in the EU” could soon come about.
However, this only applies to children between the ages of two and eleven.
Reliable data for children under the age of two is not expected to be available until the end of the year.
Up to now, Moderna has not given any precise time indications as to when data can be expected.
Are they different vaccines or just different dosages?
These are the same mRNA vaccines that adults get; however, the dosage must be adapted to the body size and immune system of younger children. And not all children are the same. That is why there are three different breakdowns within this age group (six months to two years / two to under five years / five to twelve years).
Rolf Hömke from the Association of Research-Based Pharmaceutical Manufacturers says: “The companies first calculate - on the basis of empirical values - which dose might be right for children in this age group.
That is, what amount elicits an adequate immune response and at the same time does not cause any unnecessarily serious side effects.
Then this dosage and a slightly higher and a slightly lower one are tested with very few test subjects.
After the best dosage has been determined, even more test subjects will be vaccinated with it in further study phases. ”In the case of BioNTech / Pfizer, American, Finnish, Spanish and Polish medical institutions are taking part in the study.
Do children also get two doses?
As long as there is no data, there is not much that can be said about it.
But it is very likely that it will.
Almost all vaccines need to be given at least twice for them to work well.
This has to do with the functioning and defense mechanisms of the immune system.
Why does it take so much longer to find a vaccine dosage for children?
It doesn't take that much longer. You just started later to even include children in the studies. "Only when meaningful data on the safety and efficacy of a vaccine are available for healthy adults do the clinical trials of vulnerable groups begin gradually, first with adolescents and finally with children," says Klaus Cichutek, President of the Paul Ehrlich Institute . In our society, children are under special protection and should be exposed to as little stress as possible during medical measures. Therefore one has to be very careful with clinical studies in children, so that they are therefore more complex for companies.