First Pfizer vaccine batch for children arriving by early February

Expect a delivery of Pfizer vaccines in late January or early February at the latest says the Department of Disease Control. The newest batch of the Covid-19 vaccine is intended to begin vaccinating children in Thailand between the ages of 5 and 11 years old. The previous campaign to vaccinate those 12 to 18 years old has been fairly successful and health authorities have found the Pfizer brand vaccine safe for younger children in smaller doses.

Thailand is lucky to receive these Pfizer vaccines according to the Director of Risk Communication and Health Behaviour Development Office, a division of the DDC. She said that demand around the world is high as countries begin inoculation programmes for children. Thailand is just one of many countries that have begun vaccinating children under the age of 11.

The Thailand vaccination rollout will focus first on the oldest of the younger demographic targeted in this phase of the vaccine rollout for children, with kids aged 9 to 11 getting priority in the first shipment from Pfizer.

The Pfizer vaccine has been repeatedly proven to be safe for children according to global data, and the National Communicable Disease Committee recently recommended Pfizer vaccines for the children of Thailand.

The small bodies of children don’t require a full dose of the Pfizer vaccine the same as adults do, and the normal adult dose of 30 microgrammes will be divided into thirds to administer 10 microgrammes doses for the kids being inoculated.

Right now, Pfizer is the only vaccine approved for young children despite Sinopharm applying in September for a similar approval for children over the age of 3, only to be rejected. But now the Food and Drug Administration re-examining the use of inactivated vaccines like Sinovac and Sinopharm for young children.

The Immunity Promotion Subcommittee, a division of the National Vaccine Institute, will ultimately choose whether or not to approve those vaccine brands for use on children as well. If approved, parents would have a choice of which type of vaccine they prefer for their children to be inoculated.

To be clear though, vaccinations for children in Thailand has always been, and still remains, strictly on a voluntary basis only, with parents able to approve and consent to whether their child should be vaccinated or not.

SOURCE: National News Bureau of Thailand