Johnson & Johnson has begun testing its Covid-19 vaccine in adolescents aged 12 to 17, the newest effort to make vaccinations available beyond adults.
The New Brunswick, N.J., company said Friday that it is expanding a study begun in September with adult volunteers to include about 1,700 children in the younger age group. Results of the study could be available in the second half of the year, a J&J spokesman said.
The drugmaker also said it plans to begin studying the vaccine in pregnant women.
"It is vital that we develop vaccines for everyone, everywhere, to help combat the spread of the virus with the goal to return to everyday life, " said J&J Chief Scientific Officer Paul Stoffels.
J&J's Covid-19 vaccine and another from Moderna Inc. are authorized for use in adults 18 years and older in the U.S. and certain other countries. A third vaccine, from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE, is authorized for people 16 years and older.
The U.S. mass-vaccination campaign's initial focus has been to inoculate adults because the risk of severe Covid-19 illness increases with age, and the large studies establishing the vaccines' safety and efficacy were conducted mostly in adults.
But infectious-disease specialists say that if the shots safely work in children, it will be important to vaccinate them as well, not only for individual protection but also to build up communitywide defenses against the virus.
Anthony Fauci, President Biden's chief medical adviser, has said that children ages 12 to 17 could begin getting vaccinated before the next school year starts and that younger children could get shots in early 2022.
Pfizer said this week that its vaccine safely protected children ages 12 to 15 from Covid-19, which could lead to vaccinations of that age group by summer if health authorities authorize it. Pfizer also has begun a study in children under 12 years old.
Moderna also is testing its vaccine in children ranging in age from six months to 17 years.
While J&J's shot is currently authorized as a single dose for adults, the drugmaker has been exploring whether two doses prove more effective.
To assess its vaccine in children, J&J will piggyback on a study that has been testing safety and immune responses in people in Spain and the U.K. who are administered either one or two doses. That study will soon enroll people in the U.S., the Netherlands and Canada, the company said.
Researchers will initially test J&J's vaccine in children 16 and 17 years old. After reviewing data from this portion of the study, the company will expand to younger adolescents. The young subjects will receive either one or two doses of the shot.
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