Pfizer’s COVID Vaccine Shows Low Dose Are Safe, Effective for Children 5 to 11
A nurse prepares a dose the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine at a vaccination centre in Derby, central England on September 20, 2021. - Frontline health and social care workers, older people and the clinically vulnerable in Britain started on Monday to receive a booster jab against Covid 19. PAUL ELLIS/AFP via Getty Images

Vaccine maker Pfizer with its partner BioNTech said that its COVID vaccine is safe and effective for children ages five to 11 at low doses, particularly one-third of the dose used in adolescents and adults.

The results were shown in the companies' new study. The companies noted that it also creates a strong antibody response against the virus, according to a USA Today report.

The Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will need to give its go-ahead signal before it becomes available to children.

Government officials have also promised to review the data as soon as they can.

The FDA's Dr. Peter Marks recently said that authorization is likely to be released in a matter of "weeks, not months."

Marks said that the data will not lay around once it comes into their agency.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said that they are eager to extend the protection offered by their vaccine to children until 12, especially with the spread of the delta variant.

Pfizer COVID Vaccine on Children Ages Five to 11

The trial used a smaller vaccine dosage of 10 micrograms rather than the 30-microgram dose used for people 12 and older.

The two-dose vaccine of 10 micrograms administered 21 days apart for children between five and 11 years old was well tolerated, according to an NPR report.

Bourla said that the trial results had shed a light on the importance of seeking authorization of the companies' vaccine for children five to 11 years old.

Dr. Bill Gruber, a Pfizer senior vice president, said he believes that they really hit "the sweet spot," according to an Associated Press News report.

Dr. Francis Collins said that parents and caregivers will have to wait until the end of 2021 before the vaccine for the said age group is fully approved.

Collins is the director of the National Institutes of Health.

Meanwhile, the companies said that the trial results for children under five years of age could come later this year.

COVID Cases Among Children in The U.S.

Over 5.5. a million children have tested positive for COVID since the beginning of the pandemic, with around 226,000 cases added the past week, according to an American Academy of Pediatrics report.

Children represented 15.7 percent of total accumulated cases. Meanwhile, the week ending September 16, children were 25.7 percent of reported weekly COVID cases.

Children ranged from 1.6 percent to 4.2 percent of their total collected hospitalizations among states.

National COVID case rates in children have risen during the fall last year. However, it then plummeted.

Some outbreaks have happened in schools, which had led to closures.

Schools have also seen an increase in the spread of COVID infections, which led to the debate of imposing prevention mandates, according to a CDC fact sheet.

Staff-to-staff transmission was also found to be more common.

This is compared to the spread from students to staff, staff to student, or student to student.

This article is owned by Latin Post

Written by: Mary Webber

WATCH: Pfizer: COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective for children as young as 5 - from ABC News