Moderna announced Tuesday it has started dosing the first participants in a study of its COVID-19 vaccine in young children.
The company is studying its coronavirus vaccine in children between the ages of 6 months and 11 years old, and it said Tuesday that the first participants in this phase 2/3 study have been dosed, per The Wall Street Journal.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The COVID-19 vaccine from Moderna is one of three that has earned emergency FDA approval for adults in the United States. But Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said this study will "help us assess the potential safety and immunogenicity of our COVID-19 vaccine candidate in this important younger age population." Moderna previously launched a clinical trial to study its vaccine in children between 12 and 17 years old, Axios notes.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, predicted last month that there should be enough data "to be able to say that elementary school children will be able to be vaccinated" by "at the earliest, the end of the year, and very likely, the first quarter of 2022." Fauci also predicted that kids in high school should be able to get vaccinated "sometime this fall," "pretty close to" the first day of school.
-
RFK Jr. shuts down mRNA vaccine funding at agencySpeed Read The decision canceled or modified 22 projects, primarily for work on vaccines and therapeutics for respiratory viruses
-
Measles cases surge to 33-year highSpeed Read The infection was declared eliminated from the US in 2000 but has seen a resurgence amid vaccine hesitancy
-
Kennedy's vaccine panel signals skepticism, changeSpeed Read RFK Jr.'s new vaccine advisory board intends to make changes to the decades-old US immunization system
-
Kennedy ousts entire CDC vaccine advisory panelspeed read Health Secretary RFK Jr. is a longtime anti-vaccine activist who has criticized the panel of experts
-
RFK Jr. scraps Covid shots for pregnant women, kidsSpeed Read The Health Secretary announced a policy change without informing CDC officials
-
New FDA chiefs limit Covid-19 shots to elderly, sickspeed read The FDA set stricter approval standards for booster shots
-
US overdose deaths plunged 27% last yearspeed read Drug overdose still 'remains the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18-44,' said the CDC
-
Trump seeks to cut drug prices via executive orderspeed read The president's order tells pharmaceutical companies to lower prescription drug prices, but it will likely be thrown out by the courts
