Infectious Disease

ACIP unanimously recommends Pfizer’s pediatric COVID-19 vaccine

11/02/2021

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Source:

CDC. Advisory Committee on Vaccination Practices (ACIP). https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/index.html. Accessed November 2, 2021.

Disclosure:
Maldonado, Oliver, Talbot and Walensky do not report any relevant financial information.

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The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices unanimously voted Tuesday to recommend Pfizer-BioNTech’s pediatric COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5-11.

The 14-0 vote came days after the FDA approved the emergency vaccine.

The ACIP recommended Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5-11. Source: Adobe Stock

“Today is a monumental day in the wake of this pandemic that many of us were very excited about,” said CDC director Rochelle P. Walensky, MD, MPH, said at the beginning of the ACIP meeting. “Since [this committee’s] Voting on December 12th last year on the recommendation of the COVID-19 vaccination for people aged 16 and over, we asked when we could extend this protection to our younger children. “

Walensky urged ACIP members “to weigh the risks and make a recommendation that is likely to have a huge impact.”

“In today’s review of the data, it is important to consider the specific risks posed to children from this virus and pandemic,” she said.

The schedule approved by the FDA and now recommended by the ACIP consists of two syringes 21 days apart for children aged 5 to 11 years – the same schedule as in older age groups, but at a lower dose: two 10 µg syringes instead of two 30 µg shots.

The vaccine is already fully approved for people aged 16 and over and has been available to adolescents between the ages of 12 and 15 as part of an emergency approval since May. The White House plans to introduce and promote the vaccine for children.

According to Pfizer and BioNTech, a study showed the vaccine was 90.7% effective in preventing laboratory-confirmed symptomatic COVID-19 that occurs at least 7 days after a second dose (two-sided 95% CI, 67.7% – 98.3%). no reported cases of severe COVID-19, myocarditis, pericarditis, or multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C).

Yvonne Maldonado, MD, FAAP, Professor of Global Health and Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Stanford University School of Medicine and Chairman of the AAP Infectious Diseases Committee, read a statement on behalf of the AAP recommending the vaccine and its co-administration with routine immunization in children.

The statement stressed the importance of pediatricians promoting the vaccine to patients.

“Parents, carers and patients may have questions that need to be answered about the vaccine,” Maldonado said. “Pediatricians play an essential role in answering these questions as well as reducing existing inequalities and removing barriers to access to COVID-19 vaccines in the community.”

Since the pandemic began, more than 1.9 million COVID-19 cases have been reported in children ages 5-11. Walensky said the number of children’s hospital admissions for COVID-19 was higher than any previous pandemic wave, reaching a rate of 25 hospitalizations per 100,000 people per year in children ages 5-11. More than 2,316 in this age group have been diagnosed with MIS-C, she reported.

Experts at the meeting discussed rare cases of myocarditis that have occurred in adolescents and adults receiving the higher dose of Pfizer-BioNTech’s messenger RNA vaccine – mostly men aged 12 to 29 years. In clinical trials, no cases were found in more than 3,000 children ages 5-11 and a CDC medical officer Sara Oliver, MD, MSPH, reported during the meeting that the estimated risks for every million children in this age group would likely be lower than for a group that included adolescents ages 12-17.

ACIP member Helena Keipp Talbot, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University, described her voice in recommending the vaccine.

“I think it gives the impression that we are not parents,” said Talbot. “I vaccinated my children because I feel safe and I wouldn’t recommend anything if I didn’t feel that way. And I think it’s really important to just reiterate what many of us have said: we are parents and we gave this to our children because we saw the devastation of this disease and the disruption in our children’s lives. We look forward to moving forward. “

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