Moderna Testing COVID Vaccine On Children As Young As Six Months Old

The vaccine manufacturer Moderna has announced a  trial on children from six months to under 12-years-old. Stéphane Bancel, Chief Executive Officer of Moderna says:

“It is humbling to know that 53 million doses have been administered to people in the U.S. We are encouraged by the primary analysis of the Phase 3 COVE study of mRNA-1273 in adults ages 18 and above and this pediatric study will help us assess the potential safety and immunogenicity of our COVID-19 vaccine candidate in this important younger age population.”

The New York Times writes:

The study is expected to enroll 6,750 healthy children in the United States and Canada.

“There’s a huge demand to find out about vaccinating kids and what it does,” said Dr. David Wohl, the medical director of the vaccine clinic at the University of North Carolina, who is not involved the study.

The newspaper adds that Moderna is separately “testing its vaccine in 3,000 children ages 12 to 17.”

Why is there a need to test a vaccine on children?  The number of Covid cases among young people is rising.  WebMD writes nearly 3 million children have tested positive for the virus, according to a report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association.

That number include infants, children, and teenagers in the United States who have tested positive for the coronavirus since the pandemic began about a year ago.

Children represent 12.9% of all cases in states reporting cases by age. Severe illness due to COVID-19 is rare among children, the report said.

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