Vaccine news continues to be dominated by COVID 19. One of the big stories this week was that Moderna began testing its COVID 19 Vaccine in children and babies as young as 6 months. The study plans to enroll 6,750 children in the US and Canada. 

In a separate study Moderna is testing the vaccine in 3,000 children ages 12 to 17 years. While vaccination for children won’t be immediately available, they do expect to have results from the study by this summer. 

The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine is already authorized for use in people 16 years of age and up, and they are currently testing the vaccine in children ages 12 to 15.

Johnson & Johnson also plans to test their Covid 19 vaccine in older children and then in babies and young children. 

In Britain AstraZeneca began testing its Covid 19 vaccine in children ages 6 and older. 

Of note, some European countries suspended the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine temporarily after reports of blood clots in some recipients. There were 37 reports of blood clots out of more than 17 million people vaccinated in the EU and Britain. The World Health Organization and the EU’s European Medicine’s Agency say that the data doesn’t suggest  a link, and that the incidence of blood clots is actually lower in the vaccinated population than would have been expected in the general population. Investigation in ongoing and hopefully this will not derail European vaccine efforts. 

In the US Covid vaccine administration has has picked up and is now averaging 2.5 million doses a day. There are concerns about vaccine hesitancy that could impact our ability to reach herd immunity.