Pittsburgh pediatrician hopes 'a lot of kids' get vaccinated by Halloween

Parents eager to get children under 12 vaccinated for covid-19 received some encouraging news Monday.

Pfizer announced its covid-19 vaccine works for children 5 to 11 and that it will apply to the Food and Drug Administration by the end of the month for emergency use in that age group.

The vaccine made by Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, already is available for those 12 and older.

But why has it taken so long to develop a vaccine for children under 12, and what are the potential side effects?

The Tribune-Review posed these questions and more to Dr. Andrew Nowalk, clinical director in the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Pediatrics at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.

Question: Pfizer says it will apply to the FDA by the end of this month for emergency use of its covid-19 vaccine in the children’s 5 to 11 age group. So when do you anticipate it becoming available?

Answer: Given the normal way that this process works, what I anticipate is Pfizer submitting its data to the FDA either this week or early next week to get it in the pipeline for consideration. I’m hopeful that the FDA with its various committees will then evaluate that data and grant that approval, given how strong these data are, by mid- to late-October. I’m hopeful we’ll be vaccinating a lot of kids by Halloween.

Q: Is it a smaller dose?

A: It is a smaller dose than what has been used in the adult vaccines. But what’s encouraging about what we’ve seen so far is that it produced the same immune response that we saw in adults who were vaccinated with a full dose. And it does seem that the side effects were even less than what we saw in adults.

Q: What are the potential side effects?

A: You get the same side effects with these vaccines that you see with most. That’s soreness in your arm, a little redness. And many people have written about some side effects for 24 to 48 hours of some sore muscles (and) a little bit of low-grade temperature that results in everyone who’s had the vaccine. So I’m hopeful the side effects will be less here. Encouragingly, the initial reports suggest that myocarditis, which is heart inflammation that we saw very rarely in teenagers, is not being seen with this vaccine.

Q: Why has it taken so long to develop a vaccine for children under 12?

A: It’s understandable from my point of view as an infectious disease doctor. When the pandemic first started, we all saw the severe disease and frequent infections in older folks, with a very high mortality rate that today is still a tragedy. So the focus initially was on vaccinating the elderly, vaccinating their caregivers and vaccinating critical frontline workers across the world. Now that we have been able to get a billion doses of vaccine worldwide into arms, we’re focusing on children because we recognize that, although not as frequently, many children do get severe disease. We’ve had almost 600 deaths in the United States alone, and those children can often act as spreaders to other people in the community. So they’re an important group to focus on.

Q: What is the best way for parents to keep their children safe until a vaccine is available?

A: Well, we know one thing has always worked very well, and it’s a basic principle. If everyone is masked, everyone is safe. I can’t emphasize that enough. In classrooms around our area where kids are gathered together, we want everyone to mask if at all possible. We want everyone to observe as much distance as they can, realistically, in those classrooms. And ventilation, which turns out to be important, too, should be examined and should be optimized as much as we can. But, in the end, the most important lesson is if everyone in that classroom is masked, everyone will be safe. ​