WASHINGTON: The US Food and Drug Administration granted emergency authorization Friday for the use of Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines in the youngest children, the final age group awaiting immunization in most countries.
The agency authorized Moderna’s two-dose vaccine for children aged six months to five years, and three doses of Pfizer’s shots for those between six months and four years old.
“Many parents, caregivers and clinicians have been waiting for a vaccine for younger children and this action will help protect those down to six months of age,” Food and Drug Administration chief Robert Califf said in a statement.
“We expect that the vaccines for younger children will provide protection from the most severe outcomes of Covid-19, such as hospitalization and death.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) must now also recommend the vaccines before they are put into use — a final green light that will be given after a meeting of an advisory committee of experts that is expected to be held shortly.
But the US government has said that as soon as the FDA decision is made, 10 million doses could immediately be sent around the country, followed by millions more in subsequent weeks.
Both vaccines are based on messenger RNA, which delivers genetic code for the coronavirus spike protein to human cells that then grow it on their surface, training the immune system to be ready. The technology is now considered the leading Covid vaccination platform.
The vaccines were tested in trials of thousands of children. They were found to cause similar levels of mild side effects as in older age groups and triggered similar levels of antibodies.
Efficacy against infection was higher for Pfizer, with the company placing it at 80 percent, compared to Moderna’s estimates of 51 percent for children aged six-months to two years old and 37 percent for those aged two to five years.
But the Pfizer figure is based on very few cases and is thus considered preliminary. It also takes three doses to achieve its protection, with the third shot given eight weeks after the second, which is given three weeks after the first.
Moderna’s vaccine should provide strong protection against severe disease after two doses, given four weeks apart, and the company is studying adding a booster that would raise efficacy levels against mild disease.
However, Moderna’s decision to go with a higher dose is associated with higher levels of fevers in reaction to the vaccine compared to Pfizer.
There are some 20 million children aged four years and under in the United States.
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US approves Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for youngest children
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US approves Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for youngest children
- The agency authorized Moderna's two-dose vaccine for children aged six months to five years
- Three doses of Pfizer's shots for those between six months and four years old
Faced with Trump, Greenlanders try to reassure their children
NUUK: In a coffee shop in Greenland’s capital Nuuk, Lykke Lynge looked fondly at her four kids as they sipped their hot chocolate, seemingly oblivious to the world’s convulsions.
Since Donald Trump returned to the White House last year with a renewed ambition to seize Greenland, international politics has intruded into the Arctic island’s households.
Dictated by the more or less threatening pronouncements of the US president, it has been an unsettling experience for some people here — but everyone is trying to reassure their children.
Lynge, a 42-year-old lawyer, relied on her Christian faith.
“There’s a lot of turmoil in the world,” she said. “But even if we love our country, we have even higher values that allow us to sleep soundly and not be afraid,” she said.
As early as January 27, 2025, one week after Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Greenlandic authorities published a guide entitled “How to talk to children in times of uncertainty?“
“When somebody says they will come to take our country or they will bomb us or something, then of course children will get very scared because they cannot navigate for themselves in all this news,” said Tina Dam, chief program officer for Unicef in the Danish territory.
- Unanswerable questions -
This guide — to which the UN agency for children contributed — recommends parents remain calm and open, listen to their children and be sensitive to their feelings, and limit their own news consumption.
As in many parts of the world, social media, particularly TikTok, has become the primary source of information for young people.
Today, children have access to a lot of information not meant for them, said Dam — “and definitely not appropriate for their age,” she added.
“So that’s why we need to be aware of that as adults and be protective about our children and be able to talk with our children about the things they hear — because the rhetoric is quite aggressive.”
But reassuring children is difficult when you do not have the answers to many of the questions yourself.
Arnakkuluk Jo Kleist, a 41-year-old consultant, said she talked a lot with her 13-year-old daughter, Manumina.
The teenager is also immersed in TikTok videos but “doesn’t seem very nervous, luckily, as much as maybe we are,” she added.
“Sometimes there are questions she’s asking — about what if this happens — that I don’t have any answers to” — because no one actually has the answer to such questions, she said.
- ‘Dear Donald Trump’ -
The Arctic territory’s Inuit culture also helped, said Kleist.
“We have a history and we have conditions in our country where sometimes things happen and we are used to being in situations that are out of our control,” said Kleist.
“We try to adapt to it and say, well, what can I do in this situation?“
Some Greenlandic children and teenagers are also using social media to get their message out to the world.
Seven-year-old Marley and his 14-year-old sister Mila were behind a viral video viewed more than two million times on Instagram — the equivalent of 35 times the population of Greenland.
Serious in subject but lighthearted in tone, the boy addresses the American president.
“Dear Donald Trump, I have a message for you: you are making Greenlandic kids scared.”
Accompanied by hard stares, some serious finger-wagging and mostly straight faces, he and his sister go on to tell Trump: “Greenland is not for sale.”
“It’s a way to cope,” his mother, Paninnguaq Heilmann-Sigurdsen, told AFP of the video. “It’s kid-friendly, but also serious.
“I think it’s a balance between this is very serious, but also, this is with kids.”
Since Donald Trump returned to the White House last year with a renewed ambition to seize Greenland, international politics has intruded into the Arctic island’s households.
Dictated by the more or less threatening pronouncements of the US president, it has been an unsettling experience for some people here — but everyone is trying to reassure their children.
Lynge, a 42-year-old lawyer, relied on her Christian faith.
“There’s a lot of turmoil in the world,” she said. “But even if we love our country, we have even higher values that allow us to sleep soundly and not be afraid,” she said.
As early as January 27, 2025, one week after Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Greenlandic authorities published a guide entitled “How to talk to children in times of uncertainty?“
“When somebody says they will come to take our country or they will bomb us or something, then of course children will get very scared because they cannot navigate for themselves in all this news,” said Tina Dam, chief program officer for Unicef in the Danish territory.
- Unanswerable questions -
This guide — to which the UN agency for children contributed — recommends parents remain calm and open, listen to their children and be sensitive to their feelings, and limit their own news consumption.
As in many parts of the world, social media, particularly TikTok, has become the primary source of information for young people.
Today, children have access to a lot of information not meant for them, said Dam — “and definitely not appropriate for their age,” she added.
“So that’s why we need to be aware of that as adults and be protective about our children and be able to talk with our children about the things they hear — because the rhetoric is quite aggressive.”
But reassuring children is difficult when you do not have the answers to many of the questions yourself.
Arnakkuluk Jo Kleist, a 41-year-old consultant, said she talked a lot with her 13-year-old daughter, Manumina.
The teenager is also immersed in TikTok videos but “doesn’t seem very nervous, luckily, as much as maybe we are,” she added.
“Sometimes there are questions she’s asking — about what if this happens — that I don’t have any answers to” — because no one actually has the answer to such questions, she said.
- ‘Dear Donald Trump’ -
The Arctic territory’s Inuit culture also helped, said Kleist.
“We have a history and we have conditions in our country where sometimes things happen and we are used to being in situations that are out of our control,” said Kleist.
“We try to adapt to it and say, well, what can I do in this situation?“
Some Greenlandic children and teenagers are also using social media to get their message out to the world.
Seven-year-old Marley and his 14-year-old sister Mila were behind a viral video viewed more than two million times on Instagram — the equivalent of 35 times the population of Greenland.
Serious in subject but lighthearted in tone, the boy addresses the American president.
“Dear Donald Trump, I have a message for you: you are making Greenlandic kids scared.”
Accompanied by hard stares, some serious finger-wagging and mostly straight faces, he and his sister go on to tell Trump: “Greenland is not for sale.”
“It’s a way to cope,” his mother, Paninnguaq Heilmann-Sigurdsen, told AFP of the video. “It’s kid-friendly, but also serious.
“I think it’s a balance between this is very serious, but also, this is with kids.”
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