The chief safety question for younger teens is a rare side effect called myocarditis, a type of heart inflammation seen mostly in younger men and teen boys who get either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. The vast majority of cases are mild — far milder than the heart inflammation caused by COVID — and they seem to peak in older teens, the 16- and 17-year-olds.
Marks said the side effect occurs in about 1 in 10,000 men and boys aged 16 to 30 after their second shot — but that a third dose appears less risky, by about a third. That’s probably because more time has passed before the booster than between the first two shots, he said.
Vaccines still offer strong protection against serious illness from any type of COVID. But health authorities are urging everyone who’s eligible to get a booster dose for their best chance at avoiding milder breakthrough infections from the highly contagious Omicron mutant.
Children tend to suffer less serious illness from COVID than adults. But child hospitalisations are rising during the omicron wave – most of them unvaccinated.
Pediatrician and global health expert Dr Philip Landrigan of Boston College welcomed the FDA’s decisions, but stressed that the main need is to get the unvaccinated their first shots.
“It is among unvaccinated people that most of the severe illness and death from COVID will occur in coming weeks,” he said in an email. “Many thousands of lives could be saved if people could persuade themselves to get vaccinated.”
The latest booster approval comes as teens are due to return to class despite record-high COVID infection numbers in the US. Credit:AP
The vaccine made by Pfizer and its partner BioNTech is the only US option for children of any age. About 13.5 million 12- to 17-year-olds — just over half that age group — have received two Pfizer shots.
For families hoping to keep their children as protected as possible, the booster age limit raised questions.
The older teens, 16- and 17-year-olds, became eligible for boosters in early December. But original vaccinations opened for the younger teens, those 12 to 15, back in May. That means those first in line in the spring, potentially millions, are about as many months past their last dose as the slightly older teens.
As for even younger children, kid-size doses for 5- to 11-year-olds rolled out more recently, in November – and experts say healthy youngsters should be protected after their second dose for a while. But the FDA also said Monday that if children that young have severely weakened immune systems, they will be allowed a third dose 28 days after their second. That’s the same third-dose timing already recommended for immune-compromised teens and adults.
Pfizer is studying its vaccine, in even smaller doses, for children younger than 5.
AP
Teen COVID boosters approved by US drug agency
Source: Philippines Alive
