Children aged five to 11 could receive Pfizer vaccine within months in rollout expansion

In a major boost to the nation’s vaccine rollout, primary school kids could be receiving their first Covid jabs very soon.

Australia is preparing to launch a Covid-19 vaccination campaign for primary school kids within months.

Pfizer-BioNTech says it will seek regulatory approval to deliver its jab to children aged five to 11, as it works on smaller doses for children.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration is closely monitoring rolling trial results, which BioNTech chief Ugur Sahin said last week were “looking good”.

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said Australia already had sufficient supplies ordered to vaccinate everyone next year.

“We always presumed that if trials produced evidence to safely open to children of all ages, that we would have first and second doses for them,” Mr Hunt said on Sunday.

Pfizer-BioNTech also wants approval for its vaccine for infants by the end of the year.

From Monday, 1.2 million Australian children aged 12 to 15 will be eligible for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, after the nation’s expert immunisation panel approved Moderna for children.

Federal deputy chief medical officer Dr Sonya Bennett said it was “a little too early to say” how younger children would be included in the rollout.

Pfizer-BioNTech says it will seek regulatory approval to deliver its jab to children aged five to 11.

“Firstly and importantly is the safety and efficacy, and so we’ll be watching any trials with interest, and following from that would be a recommendation,” she said.

“The two reasons for a recommendation would be for individual protection of children and/or population prevention around transmission, which is why we’ve always concentrated in that older age group.

“We know that that’s where a lot of the transmission occurs and is at greatest risk, but we’ll certainly be monitoring the outcomes of those trials.”

The federal government is expecting deliveries of 60 million doses of Pfizer, 15 million doses of Moderna and 51 million doses of Novavax next year.

With 35 million doses of Pfizer and Moderna available in the next three months, vaccine rollout chief Lieutenant General John Frewen said that once the rollout to children was under way, he would consider allowing Australians over 60 to get an mRNA vaccination instead of AstraZeneca.

“We will be looking at that as the next priority to open up, but right now, we’re just keen to get the 12 to 15-year-olds through,” he said.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said an additional one million doses of Moderna from Europe was a “family-sized dose of hope”, with parents and their children now able to get vaccinated together at pharmacies.

“I want to thank Moderna for their support to these arrangements, as well as Norway and Sweden who have helped facilitate this deal over the course of these last few weeks,” Mr Morrison said.