Pfizer testing third dose of Covid-19 vaccine for children

(NBC)- Pfizer and BioNTech are testing a third dose of their Covid-19 vaccine in an ongoing trial of children ages 6 months to under 5 years after the companies found that the two-dose regimen didn’t generate a strong enough immune response in some children.

In a news release posted Friday, the companies said two doses of the vaccine generated a strong immune response in kids under age 2, comparable to what was seen in a trial of 16-25-year-olds, but not in the cohort of children ages 2 to under 5. Pfizer said that data on variants, including Omicron, suggest that people vaccinated with three doses of the vaccine may have a higher degree of protection than those with two doses.

Federal health officials are urging all eligible people in the United States to get boosters to combat the threat of the omicron variant. Initial data suggest that three shots of the MRNA vaccines provide adequate protection against the new strain.