Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine is safe and “highly effective” for adolescents, the company said Tuesday — as it hopes to seek regulatory approval for youngsters as early as June.
In a Phase 2/3 trial involving more than 3,700 children ages 12 to 17, none of the kids who received the two-dose Moderna shot came down with COVID-19 symptoms — meaning the vaccine was 100 percent effective 14 days after the second shot.
After one dose, the vaccine was 93 percent effective, the vaccine maker said. Meanwhile, four adolescents in the placebo group came down with the bug.
“We are encouraged that mRNA-1273 was highly effective at preventing COVID-19 in adolescents,” Moderna chief executive officer Stéphane Bancel said in a statement.
Bancel said the pharmaceutical company will submit the results to the FDA and global regulators in early June to ask that the vaccine be approved.
“We remain committed to doing our part to help end the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said.
Side effects in the trial were mild — with the most common being headaches, fatigue, myalgia and chills after the second dose of the vaccine, Moderna reported.
The promising study comes after federal regulators authorized the use of Pfizer’s COVID-19 jab for kids ages 12 to 15 on May 10.
The approval, in part, persuaded Mayor Bill de Blasio to fully reopen New York City public schools for in-person learning in September, without a remote-learning option.