28 million American children close to receiving the COVID-19 vaccine

WASHINGTON -

Members of a US medical advisory committee have voted to vaccinate children ages 5 to 11 with the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, paving the way for nearly 28 million children in the United States to be vaccinated.

The approval came during a vote of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisors, with 17 members approving and only one abstaining.

The vote of approval paves the way for younger children to get their vaccinations within the next few weeks.

The opinion of these experts is an essential station in the licensing mechanism in the United States, as the US Food and Drug Administration rarely violates it, and the Food and Drug Administration can issue a final decision within days or weeks to give children the vaccine.

The amount of vaccine for children was determined at 10 micrograms (one third of what adults receive 30 micrograms) per injection, to be given in two doses 3 weeks apart (Shutterstock)

The logic of Pfizer's request to vaccinate children

The approval came after the companies Pfizer and Benotek applied to vaccinate younger children, and the vaccine had been approved by the US medical authorities for those over 12 years old at the beginning of this year.

Pfizer presented the results of a clinical trial conducted on more than 1,000 children, which demonstrated the effectiveness of the vaccine by 90.7 percent, to vaccinate it from the Corona virus and the symptoms it causes in children between 5 and 11 years.

The amount of the vaccine was determined as 10 micrograms (one third of what adults receive 30 micrograms) in each injection, to be given in two doses 3 weeks apart.

With the spread and spread of the delta variable since the beginning of last summer, injuries among children increased significantly.

The administration of President Joe Biden says that it plans to distribute doses as soon as the Food and Drug Administration authorizes them, and the administration said that it has purchased enough vaccine to vaccinate all children between the ages of 5 and 11 years in the United States, and will distribute it to pharmacies and vaccination centers, in addition to small-sized needles To facilitate the work of pediatricians and pharmacists.

Pfizer presented the results of a clinical trial conducted on more than a thousand children that demonstrated the effectiveness of the vaccine by 90.7% for their vaccine against the Corna virus (Al-Jazeera).

Side effects are rare

Some members of the advisory committee said in their testimony on Tuesday that vaccinating younger children may, in rare cases, be accompanied by an increase in the rate of myocarditis in young children, but they stressed, however, that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks.

"A small army of FDA staff has been working around the clock over the past month to ensure that data on children is as accurate as possible," said Dr. Doran Fink, deputy director of the FDA's Division of Vaccines, in response to the advisors' meeting.

The committee's recommendation comes as more than 1.9 million infections have been reported among children aged 5 to 11, with about 8,300 children hospitalized so far, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

About a third of those hospitalized children required treatment in the intensive care unit.

The FDA has studied several scenarios to estimate the impact of childhood vaccination.

One of them showed that vaccinating one million children between the ages of 5 and 11 would prevent 58,000 HIV infections, 241 hospitalizations, and one death.

In the same million children, there may be between 22 and 106 cases of vaccine-related myocarditis, most of whom are expected to make a full recovery.

Some American counties, including Montgomery County, Maryland, adjacent to the capital, Washington, require their students to undergo a weekly test for the virus to ensure the safety of students (communication sites)

Vaccine and study regularity

Allowing children to be vaccinated is supposed to reassure a large number of parents who are worried about students returning to school.

And some provinces, including Montgomery County, Maryland, adjacent to the capital, Washington, require their students to undergo a weekly test for the virus, and it is provided free of charge in order to ensure the safety of schoolchildren.

Many parents say that they are eagerly waiting for their children to receive the vaccine, especially after the return of regularity and personal attendance in most American schools.

Children ages 5 to 11 account for nearly 9% of all COVID cases reported in the United States, according to data the Food and Drug Administration provided to the committee on Tuesday.

The number of new pediatric COVID cases remains exceptionally high, with more than 1.1 million pediatric cases added over the past six weeks, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

As of October 25, 45.6 million Americans have contracted the virus, and 740,000 have died.

The number of Americans who received a single dose of the vaccine reached 221 million, or 67% of the population, while 191 million people took the two doses, or approximately 58% of the total population.

Among the data presented to the Food and Drug Administration is what indicates that during the first of August until the first of October, the outbreak of the virus closed 272 schools in educational areas, affecting 2,074 schools, and depriving 1.17 million students from attending their schools.

However, some parents and advocacy groups argue that COVID vaccinations for children are unnecessary as studies show that children are less likely to develop symptoms of the disease, despite being infected at similar rates to adults.