© Reuters. File photo: A vial labeled Pfizer-BioNTech Coronavirus Disease Vaccine (COVID-19) can be seen in this illustrative photo taken on March 19, 2021. REUTERS / Dado Ruvic / File Photo
(Reuters)-Pfizer and BioNTech SE (NASDAQ:) said on Thursday that they plan to provide the US government with another 50 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine by the end of April because the country is vaccinating children prepare for.
The move came after an external advisory panel of the US Food and Drug Administration voted Tuesday to recommend that it approve the vaccine for children aged 5 to 11. The agency’s decision on vaccines for this age group is awaiting.
If the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advisory group is approved and recommended, these companies say they plan to immediately start delivering the vaccine at a dose of 10 micrograms for children, as reported by the US government.
So far, the U.S. government has ensured the use of 600 million doses of vaccine in the country and has provided an additional 1 billion doses of vaccine to low-income and low-middle-income countries.
The drugmakers said they expect the first batch of data from clinical trials of the vaccine to be used in children aged 2 to under 5 and 6 months to under 2 years of age is expected to begin in the fourth quarter of that year or in the first quarter of 2022.