On Wednesday, an independent panel of experts who advise the Food and Drug Administration voted to recommend to the agency that very young children be allowed to receive paediatric doses of the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccines. This recommendation was made following a vote that took place within the panel.
However, their votes are only one part of a procedure that regulators have to go through before the vaccinations may be made accessible to infants as young as six months old.
There is still work to be done by the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the states before the Moderna vaccine and the Pfizer injection may be administered to children up to the age of 5 and children up to the age of 4, respectively.
In a procedure quite similar to this one, the advisory panel of experts recommended on Tuesday that the government grant approval for the Moderna vaccine to be administered to older children and adolescents. However, in order to expedite the process of making choices on younger children, the two organisations will prioritise the matter, according to officials who are aware with the arrangement.
On Friday and Saturday, vaccine advisors to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are set to meet in order to give their own recommendations for very young children. If successful, this move might pave the way for immunizations to begin the following week.
The advice provided by the agency has a great deal of weight with the states, medical professionals, pharmacies, and other health care organisations, as well as with the general public. In general, state health departments will adhere to the recommendations, although they are free to establish their own regulations if they so want.
The procedure may be carried out quite rapidly. The administration of Vice President Joe Biden has been making preparations for the likelihood that the vaccinations may be granted expedited authorisation for use in infants and toddlers, and they have established a target of giving the first injections within the next week. The administration has already received advance orders from the states for a total of 10 million paediatric doses, which will be distributed evenly between the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines.
