Gear Up to Vaccinate Your Children; Health Officials Are Pushing States to Order What's Required
U.S. health officials are setting the stage for a national COVID-19 vaccination campaign for younger children, inviting state officials to order doses before the shots are authorized.
Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine is currently being given to people as young as 12 in the U.S.
In the next three weeks, federal officials plan to discuss making smaller-dose versions available to the nation’s 28 million children between the ages of 5 and 11.
To help states and cities prepare, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week sent out a seven-page document with guidance on how to set up expanded vaccination programs.
For example, it notes pharmacies in every state can give COVID-19 shots to children, but it clarifies that only doses prepared and packaged specifically for children are to be used for those under 12.
It doe not speak to some thornier questions, however, such as how much school-based clinics should be relied on or whether kids should be required to get the shots as a condition of school attendance.
Those questions will have to be worked out in each state and city.
The guidance comes as communities are gearing up for a new phase in the 10-month-old effort to vaccinate as many people as possible.
The disease has been most dangerous to older adults, who have higher rates of death and hospitalization than children.
Health officials claim that vaccinating children will reduce the potential for the virus to spread to vulnerable adults.
Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech are furthest along in researching the use of their vaccine in younger children.
They say a two-dose vaccine series — one-third as potent as the version given to people over 12 years old — is safe and effective in 5- to 11-year-olds.
An independent expert panel that advises the Food and Drug Administration is scheduled to publicly debate the evidence at a meeting in late October.
If the FDA authorizes the kid-size doses, a different expert panel advising the CDC would take up the matter in early November, and then offer a recommendation to the CDC.
It is not yet clear how many people will get shots for their younger kids right away, said Dr. Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.
“We’re going to have potentially a very busy, and perhaps modestly chaotic time” initially, he said.
But there probably will not be the kind of heavy demand seen when shots first became available for adults, he added.
The new CDC guidance calls for shots to be given at the offices of pediatricians and family-practice doctors, and at pharmacies, rural health clinics and federally-qualified health centers.
The CDC discussed the option of vaccination clinics at schools, but stopped short of endorsing that as a primary way to get kids vaccinated. School clinics are logistically appealing, but many parents may not be comfortable with the idea, Plescia said.
The guidance also warns health care providers to only use doses that have been prepared especially for kids, and not try to fraction adult doses, Plescia noted.
CDC guidance said immunization program managers can start ordering doses Wednesday, though vials wouldn’t be delivered until the FDA and CDC sign off.
The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.
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