The COVID-19 vaccine should become a regular part of the pediatric immunization schedule, an advisory panel to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted on Thursday.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices unanimously voted on Oct. 20 to approve updated versions of both the adult and pediatric immunization schedules for 2023, which include COVID-19 vaccines.
The vote now needs the CDC's sign-off, which the agency is expected to give. If that happens, vaccines to protect against the coronavirus will appear on the CDC's recommended immunization schedule alongside familiar childhood vaccines against such as hepatitis, meningitis, polio, flu and measles.
Earlier this year, the CDC recommended kids ages 6 months and up receive COVID-19 vaccines and children ages 5 and older also receive boosters. Thursday's vote, if supported by the CDC, will add the COVID-19 vaccine to the regular immunization schedule for kids in the future, outside of the context of the pandemic.
There are three COVID-19 vaccines available in the U.S. for people under the age of 18:
- The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is available for infants as young as 6 months old and teens through age 17, although different age groups receive different doses.
- The Moderna vaccine is also available for those between the ages of 6 months and 17 years. Depending on their age, kids may get one of two doses.
- The Novavax vaccine, first authorized for adults in July, can be given to children ages 12 through 17, according to the CDC.
When it comes to booster doses, the new immunization schedules will direct health care providers to consult the CDC’s interim recommendations for guidance on follow-up doses for patients who’ve already received their initial COVID-19 vaccine series.
These official immunization schedule guidelines are designed to help doctors and other health care providers in making decisions with patients. Dr. Julie Morita, executive vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, former public health commissioner for Chicago and a former practicing pediatrician, called it the "gold standard" of vaccine recommendations used by clinicians.
"I used to look every year, waiting for this vaccine schedule to make sure I was following the best vaccination guidance available,” she told NBC News.
State officials may also take cues from the CDC's immunization schedule when determining which vaccines should be required to attend school and day care, but the CDC doesn't specifically determine those requirements, the agency explained.
“Moving COVID-19 to the recommended immunization schedule does not impact what vaccines are required for school entrance, if any,” Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said in Thursday’s meeting. “Local control matters, and we honor that the decision around school entrance for vaccines rests where it did before — which is with the state level, the county level and at the municipal level, if it exists at all.”
The immunization schedule also helps insurers determine which vaccines to cover. Federal funds that have allowed COVID-19 vaccines to be administered for free will likely run out in 2023, NBC News reported.
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