The United States is expected to have vaccine safety data for high school-age children by early fall, but probably not for younger children until early next year, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday.
The companies are just starting tests for younger age groups, but have tested their vaccines on young people between the ages of 12 and 17, Fauci said in a briefing at the White House.
“You know from Pfizer that they started with the process of 34,000 individuals up to 16-year-olds, then they progressed to 12-year-olds. So, what they will do in April, starting with April, will be studied by 12-year-olds up to 5- to 6-year-olds “, said Fauci.
“It will probably take a year to get information about this – probably not until the first trimester,” added Fauci, who is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and also chief medical officer at the White House.
“However, we anticipate data on high school seniors, namely people aged 12 to 17, by early autumn. It may not coincide exactly with the first day of school, but sometime in the fall we will have that “, added Fauci.
Companies can test their vaccines on fewer children because they have safety and efficacy data from adults, Fauci said. “So the bottom line is all this. It is very likely that at some point in the fall we will have data that will give us the ability to tell the safety and comparable effectiveness of children aged 12 to 17, 18 years, “he added.
“But also with the studies we just mentioned, to get information to make the decision in elementary school children, it will almost certainly not be confirmed until the first quarter of 2022.”
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