united states biotech firm moderna said on monday that its covid19 vaccine was safe and produced a strong immune response in children aged 611 adding it would submit trial data to global regulators soon the news comes as a panel of government advisors was preparing to meet tuesday on the question of whether to authorize the pfizer vaccine in kids aged 511 with top infectious disease expert anthony fauci predicting it would be available by midnovember we are encouraged by the immunogenicity and safety profile of mrna1273 in children aged 6 to under 12 years and are pleased that the study met its primary immunogenicity endpoints moderna chief executive stephane bancel said in a statement an interim analysis from a midtolate stage clinical trial of 4753 children showed that two doses of vaccine produced a high level of neutralizing antibodies yshaped proteins that bind to the coronavirus and block it from entering human cells the vaccine was dosed at 50 micrograms which is half of what is used among adults but still produced on average 15 times as many antibodies in children as it did in young adults given the higher dose the majority of adverse events were mild or moderate including fatigue headache fever and injection site pain these early results released via a press statement do not yet include a vaccine efficacy estimate which may be expected at a later time once cases have accrued the moderna news comes as the us food and drug administration is preparing to convene a panel of advisors to vote on whether to greenlight the pfizer shot for younger children paving the way for 28 million more americans to be vaccinated a briefing document posted on the fdas website indicated the agency believes benefits outweigh the most worrying side effect for this age group namely myocarditis or heart inflammation the overall analysis predicted that the numbers of clinically significant covid19related outcomes prevented would clearly outweigh the numbers of vaccineassociated excess myocarditis cases the document said but it acknowledged the benefitrisk calculus would differ when community transmission is very low as was the case in the united states in june 2021 the fda also uploaded pfizers efficacy analysis with the company estimating a twodose course of its vaccine at 10 micrograms was more than 90 percent effective in preventing symptomatic disease overall more than 150 children aged 5 to 11 have died from covid in the united states since the start of the pandemic according to official data if all goes well and we get the regulatory approval and the recommendation from the cdc its entirely possible if not very likely that vaccines will be available for children from 5 to 11 within the first week or two of november fauci told abc news sunday afp