Two young children were mistakenly given adult doses of Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine - two days before they were actually eligible for vaccination.
The two boys, ages six and seven, received the shots at the clinic run by the Garland, Texas, health department on Halloween after nurses told the families they were eligible.
WBAL-TV reports that the children are doing fine, but their parents and pediatricians are monitoring them for side effects, and the local health department is investigating the incident.
Pfizer doses for children ages five to 11 are one-third the size of doses for adults. The low dose is designed to reduce side effects while still providing children with a strong immune response to Covid.
Pediatricians and public health experts say that the shots are safe for kids, with no serious side effects detected in Pfizer's clinical trial.
The six-year-old son of Garland, Texas resident Julian Gonzalez was one of two children mistakenly given an adult-sized Covid vaccine dose at a clinic on Sunday. Pictured: Gonzalez and family pose for a portrait
The children were mistakenly given adult vaccine doses at a pop-up vaccination clinic, held at Mount Hebron Missionary Baptist Church in Garland, Texas. Courtesy of CBS-DFW
Pfizer's Covid vaccine was authorized for children ages five to 11 this week.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) formally recommended the shots for this age group on Tuesday evening, and the first vaccination appointments started later that day.
For the five-to-11 age group, Pfizer developed a version of its vaccine that's tailored to younger immune systems.
The kids' vaccine dose is 10 micrograms, one-third the size of the adult vaccine dose, which is 30 micrograms.
Pfizer researchers tested out a couple of different dose options in clinical trials. They found that the 10 microgram dose can lead to fewer side effects for kids while still teaching their immune systems to recognize and fight off the coronavirus.
According to Pfizer's data, the low dose caused a similar antibody response for young kids as the standard, adult dose does for teenagers and young adults.
The company is shipping out kids' doses in vials with orange caps, while adult doses are stored in vials with purple caps - a measure specifically designed to help providers avoid mixing them up.
Yet a mix-up happened at one vaccine clinic in Texas before doses were formally available for the five to 11 age group.
On Sunday, October 31, two families went to a pop-up clinic run by the city health department in Garland.
At the clinic, hosted in a local Baptist church, nurses told the families that two young boys - ages six and seven - were eligible for
