The FDA has authorized updated COVID-19 boosters for children as young as 5, seeking to expand protection ahead of an expected winter wave.
By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer The U.S. on Wednesday authorized updated COVID-19 boosters for children as young as 5, seeking to expand protection ahead of an expected winter wave.
There's one more step before parents can bring their kids in for the new shot: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which recommends how vaccines are used, must sign off.
The updated boosters are"extremely important" for keeping kids healthy and in school, said Dr. Jason Newland, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Washington University in St. Louis. To pediatricians' chagrin, getting children their first vaccinations has been tougher. Less than a third of 5- to 11-year-olds have had their two primary doses and thus would qualify for the new booster.
Until now, Moderna's updated booster was cleared only for adults. Wednesday's FDA action authorized the booster for teens as well as children as young as age 6. But the FDA cleared the COVID-19 booster tweaks without requiring human test results -- just like it approves yearly changes to flu vaccines. That's partly because both companies already had studied experimental shots tweaked to target prior COVID-19 variants, including an earlier omicron version, and found they safely revved up virus-fighting antibodies.
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