The United States Food and drug administration has approved Pfizer-BioNtech Covid vaccine for children aged between 5-11years. This emergency approval is based on the study done over 4700 children in this age group. This would make vaccine available for 28million young Americans.
United States is one of the few countries (China, Chile, and United Arab Emirates) that have inoculated children.
The dosage used for this age group would be one-third of the dosage used for people above 12years of age. This would be a two shot vaccine system and the second dose would be administered after 21 days. The children in the age group of 5-11 years accounted for nearly 9% or reported Covid cases in U.S. Children who have contracted Covid are at a risk of having a serious complication called Multisystem inflammatory syndrome(MIS). Around 5000 children have developed this syndrome.
According to CDC, there were 8000 hospitalisations of children aged 5-11 and around 146 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. The vaccination could prevent the chances of hospitalisation and serious complications in children.
The vaccine would be rolled out soon. The studies are still on for potential rare side effects of Myocarditis and Pericarditits. This could be a new ray of hope as far as vaccine for children is concerned.
