It’s been more than two years since the pandemic began and while every other age group has had the opportunity to be vaccinated, parents of kids in Canada, the U.S. and elsewhere are still waiting for a COVID vaccine for kids under 5.
For many parents, it’s been a nervous few months. ?The vast majority of children hospitalized during Omicron were kids under five,? says Anne Pham-Huy, a paediatric physician and infectious disease specialist at the Children?s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, who is also a member of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI).
So for those eagerly waiting, here’s what we know about when vaccines for the littlest kids will be available and how effective they will be.
What COVID vaccines for kids under 5 are up for approval"  There are two main contenders for regulatory approval for vaccines for kids under 5: Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech. But so far, only Moderna has made an official request for approval.
Both vaccines use messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, which teaches cells how to make a protein to trigger an immune response, and are little-kid versions of vaccines already approved for older age groups.
Moderna vaccine for kids 6 months to 6 years
In a clinical trial to test its vaccine, called Spikevax, Moderna enrolled approximately 6,700 kids and gave them two 25 microgram doses of the vaccine, 28 days apart. (The adult version of the vaccine is 100 micrograms and the version for six to 11-year-olds is 50 micro...