U.S. Becomes First Country To Give mRNA COVID Vaccine to Babies

On June 15, 2022 the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) unanimously advised the FDA staff to grant Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) amendment to allow their mRNA COVID vaccines to be given to children under age five and as young as six months.^{1 2 3} Within 48 hours, the FDA approved the EUA amendment followed by a June 17-18 meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that ended with a unanimous recommendation for both COVID vaccines to be given to all children in the six-month to five-year-old age group, which was immediately approved by the CDC’s director.^{4 5}

National rollout of the reduced dose vaccines is underway this week and, with it, the U.S. becomes the first country to give COVID vaccine to children under age two.⁶