Pfizer and BioNTech asked US health authorities on Monday to authorize the Covid vaccine specifically targeting the Omicron variant for children aged 5 to 11. The request for emergency authorization has been sent to the United States Drug Administration (FDA) for a booster dose of 10 micrograms.
In the event of a positive response from the FDA, the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), the country's main federal health agency, will in turn have to issue their recommendations before the first injections are administered to children. A similar request for authorization will be sent in the coming days to the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
The new generation of anti-Covid vaccine, called bivalent, targets both the original strain of the coronavirus, and the BA.4 and BA.5 lineages of the Omicron variant. They currently represent more than 90% of contaminations in the United States.
While children have been less affected by Covid-19 than adults, several hundred of them, aged 5 to 18, have died in the United States since the start of the pandemic, according to CDC figures.
In late August, the FDA cleared versions of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna's vaccines targeting Omicron, and the CDC subsequently recommended them, paving the way for a new recall campaign.
But only people over the age of 12 for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and over 18 for the Moderna vaccine are authorized for the moment to receive this specific booster dose.
