CHICAGO -- Moderna announced interim results of its COVID-19 vaccine for children younger than 6 on Wednesday.
Based on the data, Moderna said it will ask the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to authorize the use of the vaccine in this younger age group in the coming weeks. The vaccine was not all that effective at preventing COVID-19 infections caused by the omicron variant, which predominated in the U.S. during the study. For children ages 6 months through 1 year old, the efficacy was 43.7%. For children ages 2 through 5, the efficacy was 37.5%. Moderna said the lower efficacy was still statistically significant and consistent with how vaccinated adults have fared with the omicron variant.