AMHERST, N.Y. (WKBW) — Pfizer says its vaccine trials in children ages 5-11 went well and will now seek approval to get that age group vaccinated.
The goal of the trials were making sure the vaccine was safe for younger kids. Amherst 10 year-old Ayla Goldhirsch was a willing participant to make sure that happened.
“It was really cool to be sure kids don’t get COVID,” she said.
We first introduced you to Ayla earlier this month. The middle schooler was one of 50 children taking part in the Pfizer vaccine trial with Rochester Clinical Research.
In the trials, some kids were given the vaccine in a smaller dose, other a placebo. Researchers used information collected from children like Ayla to give Pfizer the data it needs.
“Ayla had her temperature taken each day,” said her mother Susan Frawley. “She had to do certain measurements of where the injection site was, she really had to work hard to give them a lot of data to get this to kids sooner.”
Ayla got her first injection in June, and her second a couple weeks later. She says she didn’t experience any symptoms but had to monitor herself.
Dr. Nancy Nielsen of the University at Buffalo says the FDA still needs to make a determination.
“Let’s let the FDA weigh in,” she said.
The next step: the FDA will look at all the data collected and make a determination. Nielsen says if given emergency use authorization, the vaccine could be available to kids as young as five by Halloween.
