CHESTERFIELD, Mo. — Pfizer's COVID-19 trials are still well under way.
Now, the Chesterfield-based, drug-making company is planning to start testing its experimental coronavirus vaccine on children as young as 12.
"I think it's a very necessary step. I'm glad to see that," said Dr. Rachel Charney.
Dr. Charney is a Pediatric Emergency Medicine Physician at Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital.
"We want to know if it is effective and equally safe in our younger population and so that's when we start introducing pediatric trials," said Dr. Charney.
Pfizer said it already has interested parents.
It will be the first coronavirus vaccine trial in the country to include children.
"I think this is important, but what this means is that we are getting closer to having data and information for the vaccine to be released to kids," added Dr. Charney.
Researchers say while the death rate from coronavirus is lower among children, they still can develop serious symptoms or spread it to someone.
Here in the St. Louis area?
"Our hospitalizations for kids are extremely low. Our ICU stays for kids are extremely low when you compare this to the adult population," Dr. Charney says.
Parents welcome the idea of testing a coronavirus vaccine on children.
"We have to start somewhere. Only if we do testing will we know if the vaccine is working or not," said Sujatha Sethupathi, a St. Louis mom.
"I think it's very smart of Pfizer to do these trials, said Dana McDonough, another local mom.
"The ultimate hope is that we get a vaccine that combined with the hard immunity that we may build up, the natural infection is enough to keep this disease under control and change it from a pandemic to something more seasonal like our seasonal flu, and, other coronaviruses that allow our society to function as normal," said Dr. Rachel Charney.
