Meredith Stafford, Campus Carrier staff writer
Moderna researched and reported on COVID-19 vaccine data for children ages 2 to 5 years old throughout March.
On March 22, Moderna announced that they would be requesting approval from the U.S. Food and Drug administration and other global regulators to begin allowing children from six months to under 6 years old to receive a low dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
If the vaccine is approved, younger children will be able to receive the vaccine and potentially slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus to other children and caretakers.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 18 million children under the age of 5 years old in America are currently ineligible to receive the vaccine. While CDC data shows that children in this age range are less likely than adults to be hospitalized or die from COVID-19, around 400 children 4 years of age or younger have died from the virus.
The New York Times posits that Moderna is at the forefront of the development of a vaccine for this age group. Moderna plans on using a 2-dose regimen at a quarter of the adult vaccine strength for children under the age of 6 years old. If data reported from their trials is “supportive and subject to regulatory consultation,” then they will pursue sign-off from the FDA, according to Moderna.
Moderna’s dosage is substantially higher than Pfizer has proposed for its 3-shot regimen for children under 5 years old, which they will seek authorization for in the next month. Pfizer’s proposal comes after the FDA postponed a committee meeting for experts to decide on authorization for their vaccine for children under 5 years old in February, delaying the progress for a faster vaccine for young children to look more into the 3-dose option.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said that the company expects to have a vaccine for children between six months and 4 years old potentially in May if the vaccine works. He also stated that the company expects results from their three dose trials in April.
In discussion of the potential Moderna vaccine, DeLacy Rhodes, assistant professor of biology, stated that vaccines are tested extensively before they are released into any kind of population.
“They will have gone through animal trials first to make sure that there was nothing damaging in the vaccine that causes any adverse reactions,” Rhodes said. “Then they go into human populations and are tested in tens of thousands of people before they ever enter the market.”
Rhodes said that the differences in the vaccine between each age group would center around the dosage size.
“It’s a difficult thing to work out because kids aren’t just like small people,” Rhodes said. “Their immune systems are very different than adult immune systems. They’re still very much developing. There’s alot of immune cells that haven’t fully developed in their bodies, so it takes alot more trial and error to figure out what works best in terms of dosage.”
According to Associate Professor of Biology Christopher Hall, the two things to consider when creating a vaccine for children are safety and if the children will be able to generate enough of an immune response to make the vaccine effective.
“In kids, you’re generating an immune response, so you want to make sure that you’re not inducing some sort of allergic reaction in them, which is not common,” Hall said. “But, you know, kids might have more of an issue particularly with some things—certain drugs and others, but this is a vaccine, so I wouldn’t expect a huge issue with it.”
According to Hall, companies such as Moderna would have observed children during tests to see if they generate antibodies and T cells against the virus.
Hall added that young children especially are able to easily spread viruses to other children as well as their caretakers. According to him, any protection against the virus is better than none.
“First of all, we continue to break the cycle of transmission and remember, when we break that cycle of transmission, it’s not just about protecting the person who got the vaccine, it’s about protecting the people downstream of that individual,” Hall said. “Because the individual who’s vaccinated generates a lower viral load, less likely to spread it to people.”
Each person that becomes infected with COVID-19, especially those with a high number of viruses in the blood, provides opportunities for the virus to mutate and generate new strains, said Hall.
“It’s great to get vaccinated for yourself, but it’s equally good that these kids can get vaccinated if it works,” Hall said. “If the vaccine is safe, of course primary, and secondary, it is effective. Trying to just keep down the number of infected people serving as incubators for outbreaks of more virulent strains.”
Hall encourages people to trust the verified science surrounding vaccines. He added that he was curious how a vaccine for children under 5 years old would affect the transmission of the virus to a vaccinated child’s family.
“I think it’s going to be a great thing if the vaccine proves to be safe and effective in kids,” Hall said.