On Wednesday, the Advisory Committee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Immunization Practices voted 13-1 to authorize children ages twelve-fifteen to receive a Coronavirus vaccine booster shot of Pfizer and BioNTech. Nine states across the country report record numbers of children hospitalized in the virus.

If Rochelle Walensky, the director of CDC, follows the non-binding recommendation of the panel, it would allow adolescents between the specified ages to receive a third dose of the vaccine five months after completing their primary series of doses. Moreover, an Israeli Ministry of Health study informed the recommendations to the CDC panel that found that the risk of myocardial inflammation, a heart inflammation, among children with this age group was low, affecting only two participants in a study of more than forty thousand adolescents aged twelve to fifteen who received booster doses.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended Pfizer Coronavirus vaccine booster shots for adolescents 12-15. This third dose will provide enhanced protection against the virus, especially the highly transmissible Omicron variant. pic.twitter.com/rGaIR7m8NP

— Live News Now (@LiveNewsNow6) January 6, 2022

In addition, the study revealed that the primary series of COVID-19 vaccines gradually decreased about six months after the second dose, but that a single booster shot cut infection vulnerability, Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis significantly, the Israeli Ministry of Health director of public services, told the CDC panel. Among children aged 12-15, the most common adverse side effects of the Pfizer vaccine are temporary loss of consciousness amid a drop in blood pressure. In addition, dizziness, and headache, which considered non-serious, said a member of the CDC’s Vaccine Safety Team, Dr. John R. Su.

FDA Authorized a Third Dose of Pfizer Vaccine

On Monday, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved using a booster dose of Pfizer vaccine for adolescents aged twelve to fifteen, also cutting the interval for booster dose eligibility to five months from six. NBC reported that states such as Georgia, Washington, D.C., Maine, Ohio, Connecticut, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Massachusetts, and Missouri, reported record-breaking levels of Coronavirus-related pediatric hospitalizations.

According to the CDC statistics, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), vaccine uptake among adolescents slowed with time. Available statistics indicate that Coronavirus poses a far greater risk to kids than vaccine side effects like myocarditis. A study of around 1.14 million kids aged 12-17 found that the risk of pericarditis or myocarditis was around 0.07 in one million for the first shot of Pfizer vaccine and around 70.8 in one million for the second shot. The risk of myocarditis seems to peak at age sixteen-seventeen.

One committee member of the CDC raised concerns that such a strong recommendation for teen boosters would disturb from getting doses into the arms of children who didn’t vaccinate at all. Furthermore, the advisers saw United States statistics making clear that symptomatic Coronavirus cases and hospitalizations are between seven and eleven times greater than in unvaccinated teenagers than vaccinated ones.

Read Also: FDA Approves Second Anti-Coronavirus Pill “Molnupiravir”