The 9-year-old twins did not hesitate as each received test doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, and then a bright bandage to cover the site.
“Brilliant ones make everything better,” Marisol Gerardo said as she walked out of an exam table at Duke University to make way for her sister Alejandra.
Researchers in the U.S. and abroad are beginning to test younger children to make sure COVID-19 vaccines are safe and work for every age. The first vaccines are aimed at adults at higher risk of coronavirus, but to end the pandemic children will also need to be vaccinated.
“Children should be shot,” Marisol told The Associated Press this week after the sisters participated in Pfizer’s new study on children under 12. “To make everything a little more normal.” She wants to be able to sleep with her friends again.
So far in the United States, tests for teens are the furthest: Pfizer and Moderna hope to publish results soon that show the performance of two doses of their vaccines among people 12 years and older. Pfizer is currently authorized to use it from the age of 16; Modern is for people over 18 years.
But younger children may need different doses than teenagers and adults. Moderna has recently begun a study similar to Pfizer’s new trial, as both companies are hunting the right dose of each shot for each age group as they work to end vaccinating babies as young as 6 months old.
Last month, in Britain, AstraZeneca began a study of its vaccine among 6- to 17-year-olds. 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 in children up to 3 years old.
Obtaining this data, for all vaccines that are being rolled out, is critical because countries need to vaccinate children to get herd immunity, said Dr. Emmanuel “Chip” Walter, the Duke’s pediatrics and vaccine specialist. who is helping lead the Pfizer study.
Most COVID-19 vaccines used worldwide were first studied in tens of thousands of adults. Studies in children do not have to be very large: researchers have safety information from these studies and the subsequent vaccinations of millions of adults.
And because child infection rates are so low (accounting for approximately 13% of documented COVID-19 cases in the U.S.), the main focus of pediatric studies is not on the number of diseases. Instead, the researchers measure 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, while children are much less likely than adults to suffer from serious illnesses, at least 268 have died from COVID-19 in the U.S. alone and more than 13,500 have been hospitalized, according to an Academy count. American Academy of Pediatrics. That’s a lot more than dying from the flu in an average year. In addition, a small number have developed a severe inflammatory condition related to coronavirus.
Aside from their own health risks, there are still questions about how easily children can spread the virus, which has complicated efforts to reopen schools.
Earlier this month, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, told Congress he hoped high school students would likely start getting vaccinated in the fall. He said primary school students may not be eligible until early 2022.
In North Carolina, Marisol and Alejandra made their own choice to volunteer after their parents explained the opportunity, said their mother, Dr. Susanna Naggie, Duke’s infectious disease specialist. Long before the pandemic, she and her husband, the 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 vaccine, as scientists win the best dose to test on several thousand children in the next phase.
“We really trust the research process and understand that they can get a dose that doesn’t work at all, but that can have side effects,” said Naggie, who described the decisions parents make when enrolling their children.
But nine-year-olds have some understanding of the devastation of the pandemic and “it’s good to be involved in something that isn’t just about yourself, it’s about learning,” Naggie added. “They care about others and I think that’s something that really, you know, surprised them.”
For Marisol, the only part that was “a little nervous and terrifying” was having to give a blood sample first.
The vaccination itself was “really easy. If you just stand still during the dam, it will be easy, ”he said.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department is supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.