Photo courtesy: United States Food and Drug Administration Official Website
The United States Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) has approved Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 booster shot eligibility for healthy children ages 5 to 11 on May 17.
According to the regulators, the booster shot will be available to children five months after completing the primary two-dose vaccine.
The expanded authorization is based on Pfizer-BioNTech's clinical trial that demonstrates strong immune response and positive effect in the said age bracket.
FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said the expansion of eligibility would increase the number of protected children against COVID-19 infection.
"While it has largely been the case that COVID-19 tends to be less severe in children than adults, the Omicron wave has seen more kids getting sick with the disease and being hospitalized," he said in a news release.
In a recent study by Pfizer, booster dose in children between 5 and 11 increases antibody levels by 25-fold, targeting the Omicron variant by 36 times.
However, according to research done by the New York State Department of Health, the effectiveness of Pfizer's two-dose vaccine series dropped from 68 percent to 12 percent four months after the second dose was administered to children ages 5 to 11 during the Omicron surge.
The US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is scheduled to discuss authorization of declaration to decide whether the booster shots will be given to youngsters on May 20.
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