When Pfizer introduced in late December that its COVID-19 vaccine for youths underneath the age of 5 had failed in scientific trials, Dr. Caitlin Sutton was torn.
“As a mother I used to be tremendous bummed and disheartened, however as a health care provider I’m glad the trials are so diligent,” stated Sutton, a Texas Kids’s Pavilion for Ladies anesthesiologist.
Sutton and different dad and mom wanting to vaccinate their younger youngsters grew to become hopeful once more when federal regulators set a particular assembly on Tuesday to assessment Pfizer’s modified pediatric vaccine. However days earlier than the assembly, the dad and mom had been dealt one other disheartening setback with the information that the U.S. Meals and Drug Administration needed to push it again to assemble extra knowledge on a 3rd dose. Now, the pictures usually are not anticipated to turn out to be obtainable till April on the earliest.
Pfizer has stated its low-dose vaccine is secure for kids underneath 5, however trials have but to show it really works. Whereas the back-and-forth developments have triggered nervousness amongst some dad and mom, a majority could not reap the benefits of the vaccine’s availability upon authorization.
Nationally, solely 31 p.c of kids within the 5- to-11-year-old age group have acquired at the least one dose by Feb. 11, greater than three months after it grew to become obtainable, in response to the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention. In Harris County, solely 18 p.c of kids ages 5 to 9 — the youngest class on the county’s COVID dashboard — are totally vaccinated.
“I’m very dismayed by (these figures),” stated Dr. Michael Chang, a pediatric infectious illness specialist at UTHealth and Kids’s Memorial Hermann Hospital. “For these particular person youngsters, the vaccines are nonetheless the best solution to forestall sickness and hospitalization. It’s unlucky that extra dad and mom aren’t making the most of this.”
Regardless of persistent vaccine hesitancy amongst dad and mom of younger youngsters, the omicron surge generated some contemporary enthusiasm, in response to a current Kaiser Household Basis research. Thirty-one p.c of oldsters of kids underneath 5 say they’ll get their youngster vaccinated straight away when a vaccine is permitted, up from 20 p.c final July. One other 29 p.c say they’ll “wait and see” earlier than in search of out the shot, down from 40 p.c in July. And 1 / 4 of oldsters say they’ll “positively not” vaccinate their younger youngster.
Though youngsters make up a small proportion of COVID hospitalizations and deaths, they nonetheless run the danger of creating long-term problems that linger past the COVID an infection.
A research revealed final month by the CDC discovered youngsters and adolescents had been extra prone to be identified with diabetes greater than 30 days after a COVID an infection, in comparison with these with out COVID and people with pre-pandemic respiratory infections.
A nationwide research in the UK discovered that 7 to eight p.c of kids with COVID reported signs greater than three months after analysis. And scientists are nonetheless finding out the hyperlink between COVID and MIS-C, a situations that inflames the organs, mostly seen in youngsters who’ve been uncovered to the virus.
Dr. James Versalovic, chief pathologist at Texas Kids’s Hospital and director of Texas Kids’s Microbiome Middle, stated the hospital system has recognized almost 300 circumstances of MIS-C throughout the pandemic and expects extra within the coming months. Greater than half of these sufferers have required ICU care, he stated.
Versalovic emphasised the significance of vaccinating youngsters with underlying diseases who stay particularly susceptible to the virus.
“We’ve seen a higher proportion of kids underneath 5 now impacted throughout the omicron surge as a result of they’ve had no vaccine obtainable,” he stated, including that as much as 40 p.c of hospitalized youngsters fell into that age group at one level.
“This delay by way of the FDA assessment is under no circumstances dampening our enthusiasm for the vaccine,” he stated. “If something, it’s simply strengthening the argument for vaccination.”
julian.gill@chron.com / nora.mishanec@chron.com