When a safe and effective vaccine against Covid-19 is available to the population, it is likely that only adults will be immunized first. Children, the lowest risk group for the new coronavirus, recently entered specific clinical tests – of the four authorized by the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa), only one includes people from 16 years of age. Therefore, experts heard by Estadão say that it may take months for children and adolescents to be vaccinated. There are those who say that the immunizer for them can only arrive after 2021.
In Brazil, among the authorized clinical tests, which includes
younger participants is the one produced by Pfizer with BioNTech, which will evaluate the product in teenagers from 16 years old and adults. The vaccine from the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca included elderly people and children aged 5 to 12 years in phase 2 tests in the United Kingdom only. Here, the drugmaker reported that “the current priority is to gather evidence on the vaccine’s potential to protect populations most vulnerable to serious results”.
“Children’s enrollment will begin as soon as sufficient data is gathered in adults, indicating that AZD1222 has the potential to be safe and protective in children,” said the company. The same path will follow the Butantã Institute, which has been testing in the country an immunizer from Chinese Sinovac. The Brazilian research center will await the results of clinical studies on 552 healthy volunteers aged between 3 and 17 years in China, who are due to start this month. Only then will it be determined whether and how children will be included here.
In the case of the vaccine produced by Johnson & Johnson, also in Brazil, the phase 3 clinical study, whose start was announced Wednesday, will evaluate the safety and efficacy of the product in about 60 thousand adults over the age of 18 years. There is still no information on the inclusion of children in the tests.
Read more in Istoé
