Sharjah24 – AFP: A panel of experts convened by the US Food and Drug Administration unanimously recommended Covid-19 vaccines Wednesday for children under five, the final age group awaiting immunization in most countries.

Formal authorizations for Moderna and Pfizer should follow soon, with the first shots in arms expected early next week, just over a year-and-a-half after the first Covid vaccines were greenlighted for the elderly in December 2020.

Unlike regulators in other countries, FDA offers livestreams of its internal deliberations and its stamp of approval is considered the global gold standard.

Opening the discussion, senior FDA scientist Peter Marks said that despite studies showing the majority of children have now been infected with the coronavirus, the high rate of hospitalizations among infants, toddlers and young children during last winter's Omicron wave underscored an urgent need for vaccination.

"We are dealing with an issue where we have to be careful we don't become numb to the pediatric deaths because of the overwhelming number of older deaths," he said.

"Every life is important and vaccine-preventable deaths are something we would like to try to do something about."

The United States has recorded 480 Covid deaths in the 0-4 age group in the pandemic -- far higher than even a bad flu season, Marks said.

As of May 2022, there have been 45,000 hospitalizations in that group, nearly a quarter of which required intensive care.