Both use an mRNA platform and both are considered safe and well tolerated. Pediatricians interviewed by CNN across the country suggest that both are good options.
“I think they’re both very effective with very great profiles of side effects, and I wouldn’t hesitate to give it to my children,” said Dr. Nina Alfieri, a pediatrician at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago. I think both are really good options.
Both appear to produce protective antibodies in young children, as they do in young adults. There are only subtle differences, and one may be more appropriate for some children than the other.
Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine is now approved for children aged 6 months to 5 years. Pfizer is for children from 6 months to 4 years.
The Pfizer vaccine was previously approved for children as young as 5 years old. The Moderna vaccine for people ages 6 to 17 was recently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration and CDC vaccine advisers will vote this week on whether to recommend it.
Dose size and schedule
A child receiving the Moderna vaccine will not have to go to the doctor or pharmacy as often and will receive protection a little faster than the Pfizer vaccine.
The Moderna series is complete with two doses of 25 micrograms given one month apart. Children with compromised immune systems would receive a third vaccine. The Moderna photo for young children is a quarter of the size that adults receive.
With Pfizer, it takes three frames to complete the series. The company initially tried two doses, but experimental data show that after the second dose, the vaccine did not generate enough immune response. The three-dose vaccine approved last week is one tenth of the adult dose of Pfizer.
At Pfizer, the first two injections are given three weeks apart. The third can be applied at least eight weeks after the second. In general, it can take almost three months for a child to complete the series.
Down the road, scientists may want children to receive boosters with the vaccine from both companies.
Fever
Children were slightly more likely to get Moderna fever; this happened to about a quarter of the participants in the trial, compared to less than 10% with Pfizer. Most of the fevers were mild. Less than 1% of all study participants had a fever of up to 104 degrees.
“It was rare, but I have a feeling that if we’re not being honest with our parents when these things come out, it’s going to be worrying,” said Dr. Grant Polsen, principal investigator of the Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 clinical trials. children from 6 months to 11 years at Cincinnati Children’s.
“It is likely that most children will just do well and have really minimal problems,” he said. “The majority will not have serious side effects.”
Moderna said that other diseases that cause fever were circulating during the trial and this may have led to some of these fevers, as 10.6% of children in the placebo group in the study who did not receive the vaccine , report fever.
Dr Claudia Hoyen, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at UH Rainbow Babies Hospitals in Cleveland, said she understood why parents hated to see their child get a fever, but should be reassured that fever did not cause any permanent damage or long-term damage. … urgent problems and should be resolved quickly on their own or in response to over-the-counter medications such as Tylenol or Motrin.
“I think if you keep that in mind and realize that yes, it’s scary, but it can be managed,” Hohen said. “People need to work with their pediatrician. I think many children with the first dose may or may not even get a fever, but people should work with their pediatrician if they do and come up with a good plan, and that will be the best thing to do. It needs to be resolved quickly. “
Common side effects
Safety data from Moderna and Pfizer, verified by the FDA and CDC, found that the potential side effects are mostly mild and short-lived.
Side effects for both most often include pain at the injection site and sometimes swelling or redness.
As for systemic or general body symptoms, the most common are fatigue or drowsiness. Some children have had irritability or fussiness, loss of appetite, headache, abdominal pain or discomfort, swollen lymph nodes, mild diarrhea or vomiting. But everyone recovered quickly.
“It’s very similar to the side effects we’ve seen in older children or adults. About 24 hours for some kids, you know, they don’t feel so good, they feel tired, they don’t have the same appetite. But fortunately, there have been no serious side effects from these vaccines, “said Dr. Ashish Ja, coordinator of the Covid-19 response at the White House, on CBS on Monday.
Scientists have not noticed any serious or rare side effects in the experiments. They watched closely for signs that children had problems with myocarditis, inflammation of the heart muscle, because there were a handful of cases among older children and adults. But myocarditis has not been identified in studies in young children.
Vaccine efficacy
Both vaccines were tested when the Omicron variant was the dominant coronavirus strain. Studies show that no matter what the age or dose level, this particular option is more successful in avoiding the protection offered by the vaccine to both companies.
The Omicron variant was difficult for this age group as a whole. Without access to the vaccine, the hospitalization rate among children aged 5 and under was five times higher at the peak of Omicron in the winter than when Delta was the dominant strain last summer, according to a report. of the CDC from March.
Moderna is estimated to be 36.8% effective against symptomatic disease in children aged 2 to 5 years and 50.6% effective against symptomatic disease in children aged 6 to 23 months.
For the Pfizer vaccine, there were only 10 cases of Covid in the vaccinated and placebo groups in the study – too few to assess the effectiveness of the vaccine. However, the data on the efficiency of the above line from the preliminary findings are “encouraging”, according to the company. And the FDA said the immune response to the vaccine for ages 6 to 23 months and 2 to 4 years is comparable to the immune response of older participants, but more research will be needed.
Bottom line: Get vaccinated
Get the available vaccine, experts said.
“I don’t think it’s clear that one is better than the other. They’re different,” Polsen said. “This is very much preferred by parents. Balancing these differences, as well as, frankly, what is available and what their pediatrician has or what the local hospital has.”
Doctors also suggest searching online or calling to find out what the local site has to offer. Not every place will offer both photos. Some vaccine clinics may also not offer vaccines for young children or may have restrictions on the age at which they are served. CVS stores that have MinuteClinics, for example, will vaccinate this new age group, but only if the child is 18 months or older.
Vaccines.gov can be useful. The website provides information on clinics listed by category.
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