Three siblings from Louisiana have received their first dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine as part of the pharmaceutical company’s clinical trials for young children, a report said Tuesday.
Ellie Bui, 6, Christian Bui, 3, and Sloan Bui, 14 months, each got their initial shot of the two-dose inoculation at Ochsner Hospital for Children in Jefferson, Louisiana, ABC News reported.
“We’re super excited that our entire family now has the opportunity and the chance of possibly being protected,” the children’s mom, Erin Biro, told the network.
The Bui siblings are enrolled in the placebo-controlled study from Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, looking at whether the vaccine is effective and safe in kids aged 6 months to 11 years.
The Food and Drug Administration in December granted emergency use authorization for the shot in people aged 16 and up, and in May expanded that to include those as young as 12.
Pfizer recently grew its three-part study to include kids as young as 6 months. It hopes to eventually enroll up to 4,500 participants at more than 90 clinical sites in the US, Finland, Poland and Spain.
The Bui children’s parents, both neurosurgeons at Ochsner Medical Center, told ABC that participating in the study was a way of getting back to pre-pandemic normalcy.
“For us, our kids living safely in a world where we don’t have to worry about them getting sick from COVID, being able to go to school, have playdates with their friends, we feel strongly that vaccine is what is going to get us to those goals,” Biro said.
She also expressed concern over the “Delta” variant of the coronavirus, which was first identified in India in October and has now spread to at least 80 countries and 41 states.
“The delta variant has really picked up steam in the US,” Biro told the outlet. “So we feel fortunate that we have the possible chance of having our kids protected, but more so getting the pediatric trial across the finish line so that all kids have the possibility of being protected from the variant if it becomes more significant or if there’s more cases this fall.”