Moderna to start Covid vaccine trials on children as young as six months old

Company will be first to test vaccines on children under 12

Moderna will start trials of its Covid-19 vaccine on children aged between six months and 12 years old.

The company produces one of the three vaccines currently authorised for use in the US — the other two being Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson.

Moderna will be the first manufacturer to test a vaccine on infants and young children.

Nearly 7,000 children across the US and Canada will be enrolled in the study which will be structured in two parts.

The first will focus on finding an appropriate dosage.

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“Children often need lower doses of vaccines than adults and we want to make sure we find the best dose that increases their immunity,” Dr. Jacqueline Miller, a pediatrician and Moderna’s therapeutic area head for infectious diseases, told ABC’s Good Morning America.

She added that the first age group to start in the trial will be children ages six to 11, followed by children ages two to six and then children six months to two years old. Younger children may receive a lower dosage.

The study is being conducted in collaboration with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, part of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at the US Department of Health and Human Services.

To date, 53 million doses of the Moderna vaccine have been administered to people in the US.

Both Pfizer and Moderna have already enrolled children older than 12 in studies and it is hoped that results from those trials will be known by the summer.

All vaccines in the US are under an Emergency Use Authorisation order for use in adults over 18 years old and have not been approved for general use by the Food & Drug Administration.

In the US a total of 109 million vaccine doses have been administered, with 21.4 per cent of the population having received at least one dose.

By Monday, 11.5 per cent of the population was fully vaccinated.