{"id":247264,"date":"2021-12-20T08:40:24","date_gmt":"2021-12-20T08:40:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=247264"},"modified":"2021-12-22T08:36:34","modified_gmt":"2021-12-22T08:36:34","slug":"in-setback-pfizer-tests-three-doses-of-covid-vaccine-for-children-under-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=247264","title":{"rendered":"In setback, Pfizer tests three doses of COVID vaccine for children under 5"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lauren Neergaard \u2013 Associated Press Dec 17, 2021<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Pfizer said Friday that it was changing plans and testing three doses of its COVID-19 vaccine in babies and preschoolers after the usual two shots didn\u2019t appear strong enough for some of the children.<\/p>\n

Pfizer announced the change after a preliminary analysis found 2- to 4-year-olds didn\u2019t have as strong an immune response as expected to the very low-dose shots the company is testing in the youngest children.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s disappointing news for families eager to vaccinate their young children. Pfizer had expected data on how well the vaccines were working in children under 5 by year\u2019s end, and it\u2019s not clear how long the change will delay a final answer.<\/p>\n

Pfizer and its partner BioNTech said if the three-dose study is successful, they plan to apply for emergency authorization sometime in the first half of 2022.<\/p>\n

A kid-sized version of Pfizer\u2019s vaccine already is available for 5- to 11-year-olds<\/a>, one that\u2019s a third of the dose given to everyone else 12 and older.<\/p>\n

For children younger than 5, Pfizer is testing an even smaller dose, just 3 micrograms or one-tenth of the adult dose.<\/p>\n

Researchers analyzed a subset of youngsters in the study a month after their second dose to see if the tots developed levels of virus-fighting antibodies that were similar to teens and young adults who get the regular shots.<\/p>\n

The very low-dose shots appeared to work in youngsters under age 2, who produced similar antibody levels. But the immune response in 2- to 4-year-olds was lower than the study required, Pfizer vaccine research chief Kathrin Jansen said Friday in a call with investors.<\/p>\n

Rather than trying a higher-dose shot for the preschoolers, Pfizer decided to expand the study to evaluate three of the very low-dose shots in all the study participants \u2014 from 6 months up to age 5. That third shot will come at least two months after the youngsters\u2019 second dose.<\/p>\n

No safety concerns have been spotted in the study, the companies said.<\/p>\n

Jansen cited other data showing a booster shot for people 16 and older restores strong protection, a jump in immunity that scientists hope also will help fend off the new Omicron variant.<\/p>\n

The companies also are preparing to test a booster for 5- to 11-year-olds, who are just now getting their two-dose vaccinations. And they are testing different dose options for teen boosters.<\/p>\n

Jansen said if the additional pediatric testing is successful, \u201cwe would have a consistent three-dose vaccine approach for all ages.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pfizer is now testing its Covid vaccine for the under 5-year-olds with three doses, after two shots failed to immunize all of the children tested<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":216380,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[105,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-247264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coronavirus","category-Health"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=247264"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":247336,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247264\/revisions\/247336"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/216380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=247264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=247264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=247264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}