Moderna announced a new COVID-19 vaccine trial for children on Tuesday.
The trial — called the KidCOVE study — will test a COVID-19 vaccine on about 6,750 children ages 6 months to 11 years old from the U.S. and Canada.
The trial will have two parts to it. The first part tests different dosage amounts on children. According to CNN:
- Children from 6 months to 1 year old will receive two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine over 28 days at either 25, 50 or 100 microgram levels.
- Separately, children between 2 and 11 years old will receive two doses over 28 days at either the 50 or 100 microgram level.
For the second part of the trial, researchers will use whatever data they find in the first part. The second trial will expand to children who will receive a placebo. These children will then be followed for 12 months after their injection, according to CNN.
“Moderna is doing the tests to see if the vaccine protects children from getting sick if they come into contact with coronavirus,” CNN reports.
Why it matters
Simply put, we don’t have any COVID-19 vaccines for children. This means children could still be infected and carry the virus, even as adults become vaccinated.
- “There’s a huge demand to find out about vaccinating kids and what it does,” Dr. David Wohl, medical director of the COVID-19 vaccine clinic at the University of North Carolina, told The New York Times.
- The American Academy of Pediatrics has asked for an expansion of COVID-19 vaccine trials for children to keep them safe, per The New York Times.