WASHINGTON, Jan. 5 (US) – An influential government advisory panel is considering COVID-19 boosters for younger teens, as the United States battles an omicron boom and schools struggle with how to restart classes amid the surge, The Associated Press reports.
Reinforcements are already recommended for everyone 16 years of age or older. Earlier this week, the Food and Drug Administration authorized an additional injection from Pfizer for children aged 12 to 15, too — but that wasn’t the last hurdle.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is making recommendations about vaccinations, and its advisors are debating Wednesday whether younger teens should get vaccinated once they become eligible or whether it’s just an option for those who want it.
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walinsky will weigh the committee’s advice before making a final decision soon.
Vaccines still provide strong protection against serious illness from any type of COVID-19, including the highly contagious omicron variant, especially after boosters.
But omicron can bypass a layer of vaccine protection to cause super-infections. Studies show that a booster dose at least temporarily increases antiviral antibodies to levels that offer the best chance of avoiding symptomatic infection, even from omicron.
The vaccine, made by Pfizer and its partner BioNTech, is the only option for American children of any age. According to the CDC, about 13.5 million children between the ages of 12 and 17 have received two shots from Pfizer. The boosters opened for 16-17 year olds last month.
If the CDC approves, about 5 million younger teens, those ages 12 to 15, would be eligible for a booster shot right away because they got their last shot at least five months ago.
The new US guidelines say anyone who has had two Pfizer vaccines and is eligible for a booster can get it five months after the last shot, instead of the six months he previously recommended.
Children tend to suffer from less serious illnesses from COVID-19 than adults. But hospital admissions for children are on the rise during the Omicron wave – most of them are not immune.
The Food and Drug Administration determined that the booster dose was as safe for younger adolescents as for older adults based on data from 6,300 children aged 12 to 15 years in Israel who received a booster dose of Pfizer five months after their second dose.
The main safety question for teens is a rare side effect called myocarditis, a type of heart inflammation most often seen in younger men and teens who receive the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. The vast majority of cases are mild — much milder than what COVID-19 carditis can cause — and appear to peak in older teens, ages 16 to 17.
Earlier, the head of the FDA vaccine, Dr. Peter Marks, said the side effect occurs in about 1 in 10,000 men and boys between the ages of 16 and 30 after the second shot. But he said a third dose appears to be less risky, by about a third, possibly because more time passes before the booster dose than the time between the first two shots.
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