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About 77 million people in the United States have received at least two doses of the Moderna vaccine, which has long been available to people aged 18 and over. The panel of external experts is scheduled to consider the Moderna vaccine for children under 6 years of age and the Pfizer and BioNTech COVID vaccine for children under 5 years of age on Wednesday – in both cases up to 6 months of age. It is unlikely that there will be significant immediate demand for Moderna for children aged 6 to 17 years. The Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine was approved for children ages 5 to 11 in October and had been approved for adolescents for months. However, only about 30% of those ages 5 to 11 and 60% of 12- to 17-year-olds are fully vaccinated in the United States, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “I would like to give parents as many options as possible and let them make decisions about it for their children,” said committee member and UC Berkeley professor Dr. Arthur Reingold. The FDA – which generally follows the advice of its advisers but is not required to do so – is likely to approve the Moderna vaccine for ages 6-17 soon. The CDC should also recommend the use of the vaccine. An advisory committee is scheduled to meet on Friday and Saturday. There has long been concern that the Moderna vaccine, which is given at a higher dose than the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine, may cause types of inflammation known as myocarditis and pericarditis at higher rates, especially in younger men. Some countries in Europe have limited use of the Moderna vaccine for younger age groups, as surveillance suggested it was associated with a higher risk of heart disease and the FDA delayed vaccine revision to assess the risk of myocarditis. U.S. regulators presented data at Tuesday’s meeting suggesting that the Moderna vaccine may have a higher risk of heart disease in young men, but said the findings were inconsistent with various safety databases and were not statistically significant, meaning that may be due to luck.
