The health authorities of the United State health have on Saturday approved the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines to be taken by children aged five and younger. The United States is the first country to adopt this system and this move was described by President Joe Biden as a “monumental step” in the fight against the coronavirus.
The US Food and Drug Administration was the first to approve the vaccine for children on Friday but they required further clearance from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which was finally cleared by the body on Saturday.
The distribution of the vaccines across the country has already started and the government has assured parents that they can start scheduling their children’s appointments to receive the vaccine from next week.
The Moderna vaccine, administered in two doses a month apart, will be available to children between the age of six months to five years in half the dose that children of higher age take.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine which is also approved to be taken by children between the age of six months to four years would be given at one-tenth of the adult dosage.
“We know millions of parents and caregivers are eager to get their young children vaccinated, and with today’s decision, they can,” the CDC Director, Rochelle Walensky, said in a statement Saturday.
About twenty million children in the United States are now eligible to take the covid vaccine.
