A fourth vaccine is getting closer to a meeting with the FDA to ask for emergency approval as vaccine clinics expand and supplies of other vaccines remain tight.AstraZenica is analyzing the date collected in the U.S. and will take their findings to the FDA soon.“Within a month, maybe sooner than that,” said Dr. Robert Frenck.Frenck is a researcher at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. He led the research here on the Pfizer vaccine and worked on AstraZenica study more recently.“They have to do the analysis. They have to have enough cases to say what the efficacy was but, assuming there’s a positive there, they would be submitting the information to the FDA,” Frenck said.AstraZenica said results from studies in the UK, Brazil and South Africa have shown its vaccine is 100 percent effective against severe cases and hospitalizations. Overall effectiveness is 82 percent after two doses.The U.S. results have not been made public yet.AstraZenica emerges as concerns about variants continue to grow.“The good news is that the vaccines have shown good efficacy against the variants so far. The other thing is that these platforms, the AstraZenica, the Johnson and Johnson, as well as the MRNA vaccines are ones that can be tweaked, really very quickly,” Frenck said.

New research by scientists in Cincinnati is looking at whether different Food and Drug Administration emergency-approved COVID-19 vaccines can be mixed if there’s a need for boosters.Cincinnati Children’s Hospital is researching the possibility of using the mRNA Moderna vaccine as a booster for the one-shot DNA Johnson & Johnson vaccine.Children’s Hospital will soon be looking at other combinations of approved vaccines too.“We know people are going to go do this, so we want to have data to inform the community. It may not be the greatest idea, or maybe it looks fine, it doesn’t cause any problems,” said Dr. Robert Frenck of Children’s Hospital.Frenck led the Pfizer vaccine research at Children’s and is now leading the research on COVID-19 vaccines for children. He’s also part of the new research into boosters and combining vaccine platforms.Frenck said there are lots of unknowns about mixing vaccines for boosters right now.“Does that make any difference in the side effects? Does it have any effect in their immune response? Does it go up compared with people who stayed with the same vaccine?” Frenck said.Another series of studies are being done by the global company CTI, headquartered in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky.CTI is studying a Johnson & Johnson vaccine with a Johnson & Johnson booster.Another important question is if boosters will be needed at all.Frenck said the most current data shows the vaccines are as effective at six months as they were at two months.“We were concerned that the vaccine would only last a few months and we would need a booster. Right now, if things stay the way they are, we may not need one,” Frenck said.

Doctors are expecting kids as young as 12 years old to be getting the Pfizer vaccine locally as soon as Wednesday or Thursday after the Food and Drug Administration made it available through new emergency approval.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the states have to sign off on the approval which is expected to happen very quickly.“Having the vaccine available now for 12 and above is going to really be a big step forward to make our return to normal much quicker,” Dr. Robert Frenck said.Frenck led the Pfizer trials for adults at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and is now working on research on children down to age 5.“I’m really excited about having the vaccine available for 12 and above. I’m going to be more excited when we have it for younger children,” Frenck said.Frenck expects the vaccine for those ages 5 to 11 to be approved by the fall.The biggest impact of the approval is that many parents are now facing the decision to vaccinate their children.Cincinnati Children’s chief of staff Patty Manning said the benefits of the vaccine far outweigh the risks.The American Pediatrics Association numbers show 3.8 million kids have had COVID-19, 15,000 have been hospitalized, more than 300 have died.Cincinnati is not immune to the trends.“Every day here at Children’s Hospital, since I can’t remember when, we’ve had at least one, if not many children hospitalized with COVID. That is the reality,” Manning said. “We can’t promise you, neither Dr. Frenck nor myself could ever promise you your child won’t get COVID and that it wouldn’t be serious, But we can promise you with the vaccine the chance of that happening is significantly reduced.”