Australia, quickly becoming one of most-vaccinated nations against Covid-19, will likely start administering the shots for children under the age of 12 in January, officials said on Sunday.
A Covid-19 vaccination hub at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre. Australia's health minister says paediatric doses of the Covid-19 vaccine are expected to start being administered in January. Photo: AFP or licensors
Health Minister Greg Hunt said medical regulators were still reviewing the health and safety data for the vaccinations to be administered for children between the ages of five and 11 and were unlikely to decide this year.
"The expectation that they have set is the first part of January, hopefully early January," Hunt told the Australian Broadcast Corp's Insiders programme. "But they're going as quickly as possible."
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this month recommended the Pfizer Inc/BioNTech SE shot for broad use in the 5-11 age group, after it was authorised by the Food and Drug Administration.
Army Lieutenant-General John Frewen, Australia's COVID-19 Taskforce commander told The Age newspaper that Australia had secured the necessary supplies.
"We have actually purchased sufficient supply for doses and boosters down to infants," Frewen said.
On Friday, Australia crossed the 90 percent single-dose mark for those aged 16 and over, with 83 percent having two shots. The country has also vaccinated 57.7 percent of children between the ages of 12 and 15, according to health ministry data.
Australia's high vaccination rates were key to its decision to partially reopen international borders this month for the first time since the start of the pandemic, despite ongoing Delta variant outbreaks in the most populous states, New South Wales and Victoria.
On Sunday, there were 1100 infections reported in the two states, home to nearly 60 percent of the country's population. Five more people died.
However, despite the Delta outbreaks that led to months of lockdown in the two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, the national tally of just 191,000 infections and 1596 deaths is far lower than those of many other developed nations.
- Reuters