The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said it amended Friday the emergency use authorization of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, clearing it for 12 to 17-year-olds, as the highly infectious coronavirus Delta variant hit some children.
Moderna's wider EUA was approved "after a thorough evaluation of our vaccine experts and our regulatory experts," said FDA chief Eric Domingo.
He said doctors had to watch out for "very rare" cases of myocarditis that those who received Moderna and another mRNA vaccine, Pfizer-BioNTech, might develop.
Myocarditis is a type of inflammation of the heart muscle.
There have been no US deaths reported for young adults who developed myocarditis after being given the mRNA vaccines, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last week.
It also said that a total of 2,574 US cases of myocarditis or pericarditis had been reported.
At least 330 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines have been administered in the United States.
"Definitely, with the Delta variant affecting a lot of children, nakita po ng ating mga expert (our experts saw) that the benefit of using the vaccine outweighs the risk," Domingo said.
The FDA in August also approved the emergency use of the Pfizer vaccine for children aged 12 and up.
Domingo said the prioritization of age groups in the inoculation drive remained up to the health department.
"If they decide that the vaccination drive will cover those below 18 years old, the 12 to 17, that is when we will vaccinate children,” he said.
In the Senate, Majority Leader Miguel Zubiri said it was terrifying to see newer strains of the virus striking more and more children as he appealed to the IATF to allow children ages 12 to 17 to get vaccinated.
"We now have Moderna and Pfizer vaccines that we could tap when we start opening up our vaccination program with this age group," said Zubiri.
"So this approval is fantastic news. We will be able to have one more layer of protection for our kids, apart from the current health protocols that we are enforcing," he added.
In the House of Representatives, Albay Rep. Joey Salceda lauded the approval of Moderna vaccines for individuals aged 12-17 as "good for vaccine confidence."
But Salceda, chairman of the House committee on ways and means, was quick to say "we should continue to aim for targets among priority groups first" as the COVID-19 Delta variant continues to set record numbers of daily new cases.
“COVID-19 cases will continue to grow in cases, but the vaccines have given us the opportunity to try a zero-casualty approach. The numbers are clear that vaccines save lives. But we need the vaccines in the first place, especially in the provinces,” Salceda said.
"We should nonetheless continue to aim to meet as much of the original target as possible. Our approach for choosing which 12-17 year olds to vaccine has to be risk-based. Do they live among frontliners? Do they have comorbidities? If not, we should allocate the vaccines to groups that are in greater need.”