Oct. 22, 2021
Transcript
Brian Consiglio: The COVID-19 vaccine has been approved for use for everyone over the age of 12 by the CDC. While the nation awaits approval to get their children under the age of 12 vaccinated, scientific and medical professionals across the country have been working tirelessly to test the efficacy of the vaccine.
Now, researchers at the University of Missouri School of Medicine are assisting in the national effort to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of a potential vaccine for children. MU Health Care Medical Director for Infection Control and Prevention Christelle Ilboudo says that it will be helpful in the fight against the Pandemic to get children vaccinated.
Ilboudo: “As we have seen with the adult population, having a vaccine that works well means less hospitalization and less disruption of daily lives, and so for children in particular, that means getting them back to school, getting them safely back to school, staying in school, so that we can resume normal life as we know it.”
Consiglio: Ilboudo says that though the full study is about children aged 6 months to 12-years-old, their primary focus at this point of the study is children aged 6 months to 2 years.
Ilboudo: “What I have told some families is that they’re helping advance science, because we need to know that information before we can make the vaccine available more widely to children. At this stage, we are recruiting children from 6 months to 2 years of age for the study. We are done with the older age group, which is the 6-to-12-year age range, but we are looking for children 6 months to 2 years of age who would be interested in taking part in the trial.”
Consiglio: For more on this research, visit muhealth.org/for-media
I’m Brian Consiglio with a Spotlight on Mizzou.
