U. S. ; Pharmaceutical Company Moderna says children above 12 years receiving their vaccine developed a protective immunity shield. Om Tuesday the company said that the children’s receiving their vaccine developed the same response as noted in adults. It said that it will apply for U. S. Data regulatory for review in early June.

If approved the vaccine will become the second for kids above 12 first being Pfizer. Pfizer was earlier approved for teens above 16. But later it was permitted for emergency usage for children above 12. The approval was granted by Americas Food and Drug administration.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended that children get an authorized vaccine once they are eligible. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows that about 4.8 million children between ages 12 and 17 have received at least one shot.

“Parents, reasonably, for this past year have lamented the fact that their children didn’t get to go to school, didn’t get to play, suffered psychologically and emotionally because of that isolation,” said Paul A. Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “Now, they have this get-out-of-jail-free card. They can send their kids to school and know they’re protected … and yet, immunization rates in the 12-to-15-year-olds are very low.”

Younger people are at far lower risk of severe consequences from infection than older adults, but vaccines for children are seen as essential for building immunity in the community to help end the pandemic. Although severe illness is rare, children can get sick and die or suffer an inflammatory syndrome after infection.

Trials performed by Moderna still now?

In Moderna’s clinical trial, 3,732 adolescents, ages 12 to 17, received two shots of the vaccine or a placebo. Researchers used blood tests to measure the immune response triggered by the vaccine. They found antibody levels equivalent to those of adults who were protected against illness. Instead of waiting for participants to get sick, the trial was designed as an immune bridging trial, to test whether the vaccine triggered responses similar to those in adults. The technique is commonly used to extend the use of vaccines into groups not included in initial clinical trials.

Four children became sick with covid-19, using criteria employed in the adult trial to identify people with the illness caused by the virus. All the cases were in the group that received the placebo, suggesting the vaccine was protecting the teens. When researchers used a looser definition for covid-19, which included only a single symptom and a positive nasal swab test, the vaccine was 93 percent effective after the first dose.

The vaccine had tolerable side effects, including sore arms, headaches, fatigue, chills and muscle aches. The data has not yet been peer-reviewed or published in a medical journal.

Trials in younger children are ongoing for the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech shots but are expected to take longer because researchers must ascertain a safe and effective dose, which may differ from what adults receive. Results from the Pfizer trial of children ages 2 to 11 may be available by September or October.

Johnson & Johnson spokesman Jake Sargent said the company is in discussions with regulators to expand testing into pediatric populations. The biotech company Novavax, which is expected to report data from its adult trial soon, has recently expanded testing into 12-to-17-year-olds.

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