The US pharmaceutical company Pfizer and his German partner Biontech want them Expand the ongoing clinical trials of the corona vaccine for younger children aged six months to four years by a third dose. A third dose of the vaccine will now be examined, which will be administered two months after the second at the earliest, the companies announced on Friday. This means that the results that have been expected for this year or the beginning of next year are likely to be delayed; companies are now assuming the “first half of 2022”.
The decision was made because initial data showed that Children between the ages of two and five years did not respond as well to the vaccination as adolescents and adults aged 16 and over and as children between 6 and 24 months of age. Safety concerns were not found, it said. According to the company, around 4,500 children between six months and eleven years from several countries take part in the study.
The vaccine has now been approved for children from the age of five in the USA and the EU, among others. Biontech and Pfizer now also want to investigate a third vaccine dose for children between the ages of five and twelve.