KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Kansas City area family who enrolled their daughter in Pfizer's vaccine trials is excited to hear the company's initial results.
Michael and Johanna Kelley enrolled their 2-year-old daughter, Nora, in Children's Mercy vaccine trials in April.
Michael Kelley said the couple's reasoning for doing so is simple.
"We did this because we wanted to protect our daughter," Kelley said.
Nora received two doses of Pfizer's vaccine. As part of her trial, which focused on finding the right dosage amount, Nora received a third of the amount of vaccine adults received.
Kelley said Pfizer's initial results, announced Monday, that show the vaccine is safe and created a robust immune response in kids aged five to 11, are exciting.
"Obviously it's not all the way down to Nora's age yet, but being able to get 5 to 11 year old's I'm sure is a really big relief for a lot of parents," Kelley said.
While Nora's phase of the study focused on finding the right dosage amount, Children's Mercy is currently following a cohort of kids in which two-third's received vaccine and one-third received placebo.
"That's how you get the data to figure out what the efficacy of a vaccine is, how many infections occur in those that were vaccinated versus how many infections occur in those that were not vaccinated," Dr. Angela Myers, division director of infectious diseases at Children's Mercy said.
Kelley said after Nora received her vaccine, she had minor cold symptoms such as a runny nose and a slight fever.
He's confident in the science and said he has no worries about long-term adverse effects.
"Please, when parents have the opportunity, if the FDA authorizes this, please get your children vaccinated," Kelley said.
