Kids approved to get Pfizer jab

Children as young as 12 have been given the all-clear to get the Covid vaccine under new advice from Australia’s drug regulator.

Kids in Australia are set to get the jab, with the country’s drug regulator green-lighting Covid-19 vaccination for children as young as 12.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration will on Friday announce it has approved Pfizer’s application for a licence for its vaccine to be given to children aged 12 to 16.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said “protecting children would be an important and welcome additional step in the national vaccination program”.

“Significantly we planned for this outcome and acquired the vaccines in the event of eligibility,” he said.

The nation’s expert immunisation panel must now consider how children over 12 will be included in the roll out.

Senior government sources are confident the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation will fast-track approval for children with underlying health conditions within days.

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said protecting children would be an important and welcome additional step in the national vaccination program. Picture: Ian Currie

ATAGI approval for the Pfizer vaccine for all children aged between 12 and 16 is likely to take at least a month.

Pressure to protect high school-aged children from coronavirus has been growing amid a spate of cases across Victorian campuses.

The TGA granted provisional approval for the Pfizer vaccine in January but until now it has only been approved for people over the age of 16.

Regulators around the world have been split on whether the Pfizer vaccine should be given to children under the age of 16.

The Pfizer jab will be available for children.

It had previously only been approved for people aged 16 and over.

The US has been vaccinating children as young as 12 for several months with President Joe Biden announcing on Wednesday he is confident America will begin jabbing younger children as early as September.

In contrast the UK’s equivalent to ATAGI, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, has not approved the use of the Pfizer vaccine in the general population between the age of 12 and 16.

Instead it has approved it for the same youngsters aged 12 to 15 that ATAGI is expected to move quickly on – those with severe neurodisabilities, Down’s syndrome, immunosuppression and multiple or severe learning disabilities.

The step towards vaccinating young people comes amid overseas evidence that, unlike earlier strains of the coronavirus, children are as likely to catch the delta variant as adults.

So far Pfizer is the only company with a vaccine approved for use in Australia to have applied for a licence to jab children as young as 12.

But in the US Moderna and Pfizer are both undertaking trials of their Covid-19 vaccines for children under 12 with results expected this year.