CNN: Why a Covid-19 vaccine for younger children is taking longer than a vaccine for adults
Currently, adolescents as young as 12 years old can be vaccinated against COVID-19, but vaccines are still unavailable for children who are younger. One of the major reasons that a vaccine for younger children is taking this long is the lack of data. Hundreds of millions of adults have been vaccinated already, including the volunteers for the trials, proving that the vaccine is effective and safe for the general public; however, we cannot substitute such data for vaccine research for children. Although all child vaccines are initially tested on adults, Dr. Kari Simonsen from the Children’s Hospital & Medical Center in Omaha suggests that “we can’t make assumptions about the safety or tolerability of medicines in children being the same as for adults,” and that children’s bodies will react differently to vaccines. For more information on vaccines, click here. For the full article, click here.