Tag Archives: vaccine

COVID19 vaccines for children under 5 years old, finally!

The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted 12-0 to recommend Moderna AND Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 6 months to less than 5 years.

Vaccine administration

The Moderna vaccine is now available to children ages 6 months to less than 5 years as a primary series of two, 25-microgram (µg) doses administered four to eight weeks apart.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is now available to children ages 6 months to less than 5 years as a primary series of three, 3-µg doses. Dose 1 and dose 2 should be administered three to eight weeks apart, while the third dose should be given at least eight weeks after the second dose. 

Among children, a Covid vaccine induces a broader immune response when compared with the immune response from infection. In contrast with Covid infection, children vaccinated against Covid demonstrated a better immune response against alpha, beta, gamma, delta and omicron variants. The data shows the importance of vaccinating children who have already had a covid infection to prevent both severe disease and future infections.

Vaccine rollout

Legacy Pediatrics has received the Covid vaccines and are currently scheduling vaccination appointments.  Please call and ask to speak with a nurse, to make that appointment. 

Legacy Pediatrics will follow the recommendation that the same mRNA vaccine product should be used for all primary series doses. We are frequently asked if a child should receive other vaccines along with the Covid vaccine. The CDC recommends routine administration of all age-appropriate vaccines at the same time as the Covid vaccine.  If families would like to separate them, we will administer their scheduled well visit vaccinations, and have families return at a later date to start the COVID vaccine series.

Clinical trials

These recommendations to vaccinate children less than 5 years of age are based on clinical trial data. Moderna’s clinical trial was conducted from December 2021 through February 2022 (during the omicron surge) and involved 6,400 children. Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine clinical trial included 3,000 children and was conducted from June 2021 through April 2022 (while both the delta, beta and omicron variants were circulating). Both vaccines induced a strong antibody response and were well tolerated with minor side effects.

Lastly, why COVID-19 vaccines should be given to children

Between March 1, 2020, and April 30, 2022, 269 children younger than 1 year and 134 children ages 1-4 years died because of COVID-19.

More than 2 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported among children ages 6 months to 5 years. Children in this age group are at risk of severe illness from COVID-19, and more than half of all hospitalized children with covid infection ages 6 months to 5 years were previously healthy with no underlying medical conditions.

As always, reach out to us if you’d like to discuss vaccination in more detail. 

Legacy Partners with Rochester Clinical Research to Advance Pediatric Medicine

Rochester Clinical Research (RCR), the area’s premier clinical research facility, has inked one of its first pediatric site affiliations with Legacy Pediatrics. This new partnership will help deliver additional care options to Rochester families while advancing new medical treatments and improving the quality of life for children everywhere.

Until this year the majority of clinical studies carried out at RCR looked at new treatments for adult ailments such as migraines, joint pain, and obesity. Unlike studies that seek patients diagnosed with certain medical ailments, RCR also participates in a number of “healthy volunteer” trials to study the efficacy of vaccines.

Dr. Janet Casey, the managing physician at Legacy Pediatrics, has always had a strong desire to advance the body of knowledge on best practices in pediatric populations. Dr. Casey spent a number of years as a pediatric oncologist practicing at Duke University. Upon landing in Rochester she entered the general pediatrics field and continued her interest in research that was borne out of her work treating childhood cancer. Over the past ten years Legacy has taken part in many pediatric research studies including vaccine development and the diagnosis and treatment of acute otitis media – ear infections.

Continue reading

Why get flu vaccine?

Influenza virus and pneumococci bacteria “dance” together.

Most parents know that the Flu vaccine has been proven to reduce the frequency of not only the flu but also ear infections, sinus infections and pneumonia caused by a bacteria called “pneumococcus”.  How that happens is becoming clear.  Our group has been studying the details of the interaction between Flu virus and pneumococci to unravel the steps in the dance between the flu virus and the pneumococcus in the nose that results in significant respiratory diseases.  Pneumococci live in the posterior part of the nose and upper throat as usually peaceful bacteria in all of us, harmlessly present in relatively low numbers.  The bacteria are so common that our studies to detect pneumococci in the nose and throat discover their presence in up to 80% of infants and young children and about 20% of adults at any one time.  However, the bacteria are harmless in patients that have a competent immune system unless an intercurrent viral upper respiratory infection like a cold or the flu occurs.

Continue reading

Getting Ready For The 2013-2014 Flu Season

Another flu season is upon us. And we are left hoping it will be nothing like last year, which proved to be one of the worst flu seasons we have had in many years. The 2012-2013 season brought two surges of flu in New York State, with the first surge being influenza A and the second surge being influenza B. Not only did we see high reports of flu, but we saw the flu season span a longer period of time than we were used to.  The first cases of flu started as early as November and we continued to see it into May. We even had patients who were unlucky enough to have it twice within the same season.

Jan 25 Flu Results

(This is current information as of 1/31/2014 from the NYSDOH)

So as we embark on the 2013-2014 season, we are facing lots of questions, concerns, and misconceptions regarding the flu shot.  Here is a list of the top things I hear from our patients, and our response.

Continue reading