Dr. Anthony Fauci, the United States' top infectious disease expert, stated that it could take months before the COVID-19 vaccine could be given to children.
Fauci said that this is because it is necessary to assess the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine with adults before administering it to children.
The health expert shared his evaluation in an interview on Sunday with NBC anchor Chuck Todd on "Meet the Press."
Todd noted that the biotech company Moderna did not conduct clinical trials on people under age 18. Another vaccine developer, Pfizer, went down to age 12 with no younger children in its trials.
He asked Fauci for the date that Americans could expect to have their children immunized and if he believed it could occur by summer, reported The US Sun.
Fauci responded that the reason is "traditionally when you have a situation like a new vaccine, you want to make sure, that a vaccine would not be approved for children possibly until after January."
The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases stated that authorities would commence the process possibly in January to deliver it to children sooner, reported Business Insider.
Fauci added that before administering it to children, "you're going to want to make sure you have a degree of efficacy and safety that is established in an adult population, particularly an adult, normal population," reported New York Post.
He said that once that is established, clinical trials could operate to determine if the vaccine is effective for children.
Also Read: New Normal: How Long Will We Need to Wear Face Masks?
The process will then incorporate a "bridging study" that would detect similar results as the adult trials.
Also, according to Fauci, adults and children should consider comparable immunogenicity; specifically, a similar type of immune response, reported Daily Mail.
He continued it is not too late for people flying home following Thanksgiving to help mitigate COVID-19 by wearing face masks, staying socially distant from people, and avoiding large gatherings.
Such a process can get a vaccine approved for children, and it can be a much shorter time frame instead of conducting a 30,000-person trial.
Fauci concluded he would prefer to get a vaccine for children sooner instead of later.
While drug developers Moderna, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca have recently declared promising results for their doses, they have not yet acquired the United States Food and Drug Administration's go-signal for dissemination, which necessitates greater safety data.
The initial shots would possibly go to healthcare workers and older people. However, other adults could get vaccinated in April or June, depending on who to ask.
Fauci also said it is very likely that adults who have survived COVID-19 would be persuaded to take the COVID-19 vaccine. He said it would be unsurprising since we do not know the durability of protection from an individual who has already been infected and the duration of that protection.
The total of COVID-19 cases recorded in the U.S. topped 200,000 for the first time on Friday.
