Covid vaccine for children 6 months to 4 years old

Children between the ages of six months and four years old can now get a Covid-19 vaccine. The Ministry of Public Health launched a new campaign to vaccinate young children using the Pfizer vaccine at a significantly lower dosage.

The same vaccine has been used in the United States for young children in the same age range. The Thai Khu Fah page on Facebook run by the government highlights Pfizer vaccines’ success and safety on kids in the US. The microdose helps lower multisystem inflammatory syndromes and has seen fewer side effects in children according to Mobile Cardiac Outpatient Telemetry (MCOT).

Thai authorities approved Pfizer’s Comirnaty Covid-19 vaccine for children between six months old to under five years old back in August. Vaccination started in children between the ages of five and 11 on January 31 after real-world testing proved it safe.

The dose will be adjusted to 10 micrograms per injection for children in this youngest age range. For children 5-11 years old, the dose is 30mcg. Each vial has 1.3 millilitres of the concentrated Pfizer vaccine which is diluted for children with an equal amount of 0.9% sodium chloride solution. Then each vial contains enough serum to administer to 10 children.

This lesser, diluted formula, has several advantages. Side effects are rarer and less intense, usually lasting one to two days, and mainly consisting of tiredness, headaches, muscle aches, fever, chills, and swelling or redness where they received the vaccine. The children’s vaccine formula can also be stored between 2 degrees Celsius and 8 degrees Celsius for up to ten weeks after being removed from the ultracold storage.

Eight weeks after children have had their second dose, they can get booster shots with 3mcg per dose eight weeks after the second shot. Thai Food and Drug Administration secretary-general Dr Paisan Dankhum said that the vaccines in children will be over 80% effective after three doses.