US likely to authorize Pfizer COVID vaccine for kids age 5-11 by October: Former FDA Chief

Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine could soon be approved for children ages 5 to 11 by the end of October, former head of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said Sunday in a televised interview with "Face the Nation. Dr. Scott Gottlieb, also on Pfizer's Board of Directors, stated that the jabs would be administered to kids before the end of September, and it data will be filed for the emergency authorisation with the FDA "very quickly.” But it may, he stressed, take several weeks or even months to get the approvals. Pfizer has been conducting clinical trials of the two-dose vaccine regime in kids 2 years and older. 

"In a best-case scenario, given that timeline they've just laid out, you could potentially have a vaccine available to children aged 5 to 11 by Halloween," Gottlieb told CBS in televised remarks.

"If everything goes well, the Pfizer data package is in order, and FDA ultimately makes a positive determination, I have confidence in Pfizer in terms of the data that they've collected. But this is really up to the Food and Drug Administration to make an objective determination,” he continued. 

As the US is battered with the highly contagious Delta variant upsurge, kids account for 25 percent of the COVID-19 infections, reports suggest. US FDA authorised the dose already for children aged 12 to 15. "I think you're going to see more local school districts and governors make those recommendations," the ex-FDA chief said in a televised address.

"Eventually ACIP is going to make a recommendation about whether this should be included in the childhood immunization schedule,” he added. Furthermore, he said, “My guess is they're waiting for more of the vaccines to be fully licensed to make that kind of a recommendation. But I would expect this eventually to be required as part of the childhood immunization schedule."

Pandemic in US 'nowhere under control' 

In a televised remark, US top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci stated that COVID-19 is “nowhere near under control” in the United States and the cases have surged more than ten times higher than they need to be in order to end the pandemic. His remarks follow the warnings about the upcoming coronavirus mutations that he stated could be even more contagious than the delta of the coronavirus lineage. The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) told Axios that the US has a mounting caseload of COVID-19 which is "not even modestly good control". "Until the cases dip to 10,000 a day, we are still in full ‘pandemic mode’," the infectious disease expert said.