Dr. Anthony Fauci, US President Joe Biden's chief medical adviser, estimated on Sunday that children ages 5 to 11 in the United States may be able to receive their COVID-19 vaccine in the first two weeks of November.
"You never want to get ahead of the FDA in their regulatory decisions, nor do you want to get ahead of the CDC and their advisers on what the recommended would be," Fauci told ABC News in an interview. "But if you look at the data that's been made public and announced by the company, the data looked good as to the efficacy and the safety."
The interview comes ahead of Tuesday’s meeting of the Food and Drug Administration's vaccine advisory group which will discuss approving a vaccine for children.
"If all goes well, and we get the regulatory approval and the recommendations from the CDC, it's entirely possible, if not very likely, that vaccines will be available for children from 5-11, within the first week or two of November," Fauci said.
Last week, the Biden administration unveiled its plan to vaccinate children between the ages of 5 and 11 against the coronavirus.
According to the plan, the vaccine doses will be specially prepared for children and be different from the doses that are given in the vaccines administered to adults.
On Friday, Pfizer said that the COVID-19 vaccine it developed together with BioNTech showed 90.7% efficacy against the coronavirus in a clinical trial of children 5 to 11 years old.
16 children in the trial who had received a placebo got COVID-19, compared with 3 who were vaccinated, Pfizer said in briefing documents submitted to the FDA.