The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized a booster dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for kids ages 5 to 11 on Tuesday, May 17. The FDA said in a statement that children in the age group could get a booster shot at least five months after they have received the primary two-dose series.
Pfizer's booster shot is set at 10 micrograms, the same dosage as the primary series for the 5 to 11 age group and a third of the dosage given to people ages 12 and above. The FDA's decision will now go to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which will then recommend how the boosters should be used for the particular age group.
The CDC's independent group of advisers, known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, is expected to hold a scheduled meeting on Thursday, May 19, to discuss the booster of Pfizer for children ages 5 to 11. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky is expected to issue a final recommendation regarding the booster following that meeting. Booster shots could be given to children as early as Friday.
Parents advised that booster doses should provide better protection for kids
According to data from the CDC, less than a third of the 28 million 5-to-11-year-old kids in the United States have received two doses of a COVID vaccine. Dr. Peter Marks, the FDA's top vaccine regulator, told NBC News that parents can protect their children from potentially severe consequences of the coronavirus by getting them vaccinated with the two-dose primary series.
Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, echoed that sentiment, saying that the booster dose should provide better protection against mild illness caused by the omicron variant and its family of subvariants, which appear to be more adept than previous COVID-19 strains at sidestepping immunity from vaccinations or prior infection.
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Additional doses in kids should raise antibody levels enough
Clinical trial results released back in April found that a booster dose of the Pfizer vaccine in children ages 5 to 11 raised antibody levels against the original strain of COVID-19 and the omicron variant. The results did not show how long the antibodies remain elevated in the children tested, though higher antibody levels usually persist for about four months from boosters in adults.
Offit added that the additional dose in children should raise the antibody levels enough to provide kids a high level of protection against mild disease from COVID for at least a few months. Offit said that the third dose provides children probably three to six months of better protection.
The results came a couple of months after New York State Department of Health's researchers reported that two doses of the Pfizer COVID vaccine offered little protection against infection in children ages 5 to 11, according to CNN.
