The 9-year-old twins did not flinch when they each received test doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine – and then a shiny bandage to cover the site.
“The sparkles make everything better,” said Marisol Gerardo as she jumped from an exam table at Duke University to make way for her sister Alejandra.
Researchers in the United States and abroad are beginning to test younger and younger children to make sure that the COVID-19 vaccines are safe and work for all ages. The first vaccines are aimed at adults at greater risk of contracting the coronavirus, but the end of the pandemic will also require vaccination of children.
“Children should have the chance,” Marisol told The Associated Press this week after the sisters participated in Pfizer’s new study of children under 12. “So that everything is a little more normal”. She is looking forward to being able to sleep with friends again.
So far, in the United States, tests on adolescents are more advanced: Pfizer and Moderna hope to release results soon showing how two doses of their vaccines worked in the population aged 12 and over. Pfizer is currently authorized for use from the age of 16; Modern is for people over 18 years old.
But younger children may need different doses than teenagers and adults. Moderna recently started a study similar to the new Pfizer trial, as both companies are looking for the right dosage for each injection for each age group while working to vaccinate babies up to 6 months.
Last month, in Britain, AstraZeneca started a study of its vaccine among children aged 6 to 17 years. Johnson & Johnson is planning its own pediatric studies. And in China, Sinovac recently announced that it has submitted preliminary data to Chinese regulators showing that its vaccine is safe for children as young as 3 years old.
Obtaining this data, for all vaccines being launched, is critical because countries must vaccinate children to achieve collective immunity, noted Duke, a pediatric and vaccine specialist, Dr. Emmanuel “Chip” Walter, who is helping to lead the study. from Pfizer.
Most of the COVID-19 vaccines used worldwide have been studied for the first time in tens of thousands of adults. The studies in children will not need to be as large: the researchers have safety information from these studies and the subsequent vaccinations of millions of adults.
And because childhood infection rates are so low – they account for about 13 percent of documented COVID-19 cases in the United States – the main focus of pediatric studies is not counting the number of illnesses. Instead, researchers are measuring whether vaccines boost young people’s immune systems in the same way as adults – suggesting they will offer similar protection.
Proving this is important because, although children are much less likely than adults to become seriously ill, at least 268 died of COVID-19 in the US alone and more than 13,500 were hospitalized, according to a count by the American Academy of Pediatrics . This is more than dying from the flu in a normal year. In addition, a small number have developed a severe inflammatory disease linked to the coronavirus.
In addition to its own health risks, there are still doubts about the ease with which children can spread the virus, something that has complicated efforts to reopen schools.
Earlier this month, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the leading infectious disease specialist in the United States, told Congress that he expected high school students to probably start vaccinating in the fall. Elementary school students, he said, may not be eligible until early 2022.
In North Carolina, Marisol and Alejandra made their own choice of volunteers after their parents explained the opportunity, said their mother, Dr. Susanna Naggie, an infectious disease specialist at Duke. Long before the pandemic, she and her husband, emergency physician Dr. Charles Gerardo, regularly discussed their own research projects with the girls.
In the first phase of the Pfizer study, a small number of children receive different doses of the vaccine while scientists find the best dosage to test on thousands of children in the next phase.
“We really trust the research process and understand that they may receive a dose that doesn’t work, but it can have side effects,” said Naggie, describing the decision-making that parents face when enrolling their children.
But 9-year-olds have some understanding of the devastation of the pandemic and “it is good to participate in something that is not just about you, but also about learning,” added Naggie. “They care about others and I think this is something that really impressed them.”
For Marisol, the only part that was “a little stressful and scary” was having to give a blood sample first.
The vaccination itself was “very easy. If you stand still while filming, it will be simple, ”she said.