“I think they are both extremely effective with very good side effects profiles and I would not hesitate to give them to my children either,” said Dr. Nina Alfieri, a pediatrician at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago. “I think both are very good choices.” Both appear to produce protective antibodies in young children as they do in young adults. There are only subtle differences and one may be better suited to some children than the other. Moderna Covid-19 vaccine is now approved for children aged 6 months to 5 years. Pfizer’s is for children from 6 months to 4 years. The Pfizer vaccine was previously approved for children as young as 5 years old. The Moderna vaccine for people ages 6 to 17 was recently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, and CDC vaccine advisors will vote this week on whether to recommend it.
Dose size and schedule
A child getting the Moderna vaccine will not need to go to the doctor or pharmacy so often and will get protection a little faster than the Pfizer vaccine. The Moderna series is complete with two doses of 25 micrograms administered one month apart. Children with weakened immune systems would get a third shot. The Moderna vaccine for young children is a quarter of the size that adults get. With Pfizer, it takes three shots to complete the series. The company initially tried two doses, but test data showed that after the second dose, the vaccine did not elicit enough of an immune response. The three-dose vaccine approved last week is one-tenth the size of a Pfizer adult dose. With Pfizer, the first two shots are taken three weeks apart. The third can be administered at least eight weeks after the second. In total, it may take almost three months for the child to have the full range. Along the way, scientists may want children to receive the booster with any company vaccine.
Fever
Children were slightly more likely to develop a fever with the Moderna vaccine. occurred with about a quarter of test participants, compared with less than 10% with Pfizer. Most fevers were mild. Less than 1% of all test participants had a fever that reached 104 degrees. “It was rare, but I feel that if we are not honest with our parents, when these things come out, it will be worrying,” he said. Grand Paulsen, lead researcher on the Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 vaccine. clinical trials for children 6 months to 11 years at Cincinnati Children’s. “Chances are most kids will do well and have really few problems,” he said. “The majority are not going to have significant side effects.” Moderna said other fever-causing illnesses were circulating during the trial and this may have led to some of these fevers, as 10.6% of the children in the placebo group who did not get the vaccine reported a fever. Dr Claudia Hoyen, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at UH Rainbow Babies Hospitals in Cleveland, said she understands why parents hate to see their child develop a fever, but they need to be sure that the fever does not cause any permanent damage or time problems. should resolve quickly on its own or in response to over-the-counter medications such as Tylenol or Motrin. “I think if you keep that in mind and realize that, yes, it’s scary, but it can be manageable,” Hoyen said. “People need to work with their pediatrician. I think a lot of children with the first dose may have a fever or not even have a fever, but they should work with their pediatrician if they do and end up with “A good plan and that will be the best thing to do. It needs to be resolved quickly.”
General side effects
Safety data from Moderna and Pfizer, which were audited by the FDA and the CDC, found that the potential side effects were mostly mild and short-lived. Side effects for both involved more pain at the injection site and sometimes swelling or redness. With regard to systemic or whole-body symptoms, the most common were fatigue or drowsiness. Some children have had irritability or agitation, loss of appetite, headache, abdominal pain or discomfort, enlarged lymph nodes, mild diarrhea or vomiting. But they all got better quickly. “It’s very similar to the side effects we’ve seen in older children or adults. About 24 hours some children, you know, kind of do not feel as good, they feel tired, they do not have the same But fortunately, there were no serious side effects from these vaccines.” , said Dr. Ashish Jha, Covid-19 White House Response Coordinator, at CBS on Monday. The scientists did not see any serious or rare side effects in the experiments. They closely monitored for signs that children were developing problems with myocarditis, inflammation of the heart muscle, because there were few cases among older children and adults. However, myocarditis was not detected in tests in young children.
Vaccine effectiveness
Both vaccines were tested when the Omicron variant was the dominant strain of the coronavirus. Studies show that regardless of age or dose level, this particular variant has been more successful in avoiding the protection offered by each company ‘s vaccine. The Omicron variant was difficult for this age group in general. Without vaccine access, hospitalization rates for children 5 years and under were five times higher during the Omicron peak in winter, compared to when the Delta variant was the dominant strain last summer, according to a March report from the CDC . Moderna was estimated to be 36.8% effective against symptomatic disease in children aged 2 to 5 years and 50.6% protective against symptomatic disease in persons aged 6 to 23 months. For the Pfizer vaccine, there were only 10 cases of Covid in the vaccinated group and the placebo group in the trial – this is too small a number to evaluate the effectiveness of the vaccine. Efficacy data from the preliminary findings are “encouraging,” according to the company. And the FDA said the immune response to the vaccine for ages 6 to 23 months and 2 to 4 years was comparable to the immune response of older participants, but more research will be needed.
Conclusion: Get vaccinated
Get the vaccine available, experts said. “I do not think it is clear that one is better than the other. It’s different,” Paulsen said. “It’s very much what parents prefer. Balancing these differences as well as, honestly, what is available and what their pediatrician has or what the local hospital has.” Doctors also suggest that you search the internet or call to find out what the local site has to offer. Not every location will offer both shots. Some vaccine clinics may also not offer vaccines for young children or may have restrictions on the ages they serve. CVS stores with MinuteClinics, for example, will vaccinate this new age group, but only if the child is 18 months or older. Vaccines.gov can be useful. The site provides some information on the clinics listed by category.
