KUALA LUMPUR – It is too early for the government to discuss on starting a Covid-19 vaccination programme for children below the age of five, said Dr Nik Khairulddin Nik Yusoff, an infectious diseases paediatrician at Kota Baru’s Raja Perempuan Zainab II Hospital.
He said it is because there have not been any vaccines approved for usage for that category in Malaysia and other countries in the world.
“The government through the Health Ministry will look into the need of such inoculation from time to time, by looking at the trend of Covid-19 transmission in the future,” he said in an online media engagement session on PICKids and the adverse effects of immunisation report organised by the Health Ministry today.
He said it is important to protect young children since this age group has not been authorised to receive Covid-19 vaccines.
Last December, Pfizer-BioNTech said it was testing a third dose of its vaccine in an ongoing trial of young children after it found that the two-dose regimen didn’t generate a strong enough immune response in some children.
Meanwhile, the United States Food and Drug Administration could expand the use of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine for children aged six months to five years by the end of February.
According to a report by NBC News, federal regulators intend to start reviewing the data on two doses of the vaccine for young kids while the companies continue to gather data on a potential three-dose regimen. – The Vibes, February 8, 2022
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