Covid-19 jabs for kids but ‘at-risk’ remains priority

Teenagers will be allowed to join the nation’s vaccine rollout in a move that has been panned by some infectious disease experts who say the focus should remain on inoculating older Australians.

Sydney mum Delia Burrage says she has no qualms about vaccinating Hugo, 13, as well as Jasper, 11, and Frankie, 9, when they are eligible. Picture: John Feder

Teenagers will be allowed to join the nation’s vaccine rollout in a move that has been panned by some infectious disease experts, who say the focus should remain on inoculating older Australians and high-risk groups as Covid-19 continues to run rampant in parts of the country.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) announced on Friday that it had approved the Pfizer jab for young people between 12 and 15-years-old, with the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) still to give the final sign-off and provide advice on who would be “prioritised”.

National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance director Kristine Macartney said it was a “positive step” that there would soon be a vaccine for younger people available, because even though they were at very low risk of serious illness they could still transmit the virus to others.

“The chances of a child dying from Covid-19 is really in the order of one or two in a million,” she said. “But the important thing to remember is children are in households and they can essentially pass the virus on through schools and adults in the community.”

Professor Macartney said authorities should remain focused on vaccinating older people and more vulnerable groups, which could now include teenagers with underlying medical issues which put them at risk, before opening up the vaccine to healthy teens.

“I think the focus on children should be on those at the highest risk,” she said.

“As we’ve seen in other countries children with medical risk conditions such as severe disabilities and potentially heart or lung disease or compromised immune systems would be children of substantially higher risk and those that have a higher risk of becoming more severely ill.”

Sydney University infectious disease expert and pediatrician Robert Booy said it was largely unnecessary to vaccinate teenagers due to their “robust” immune systems, describing the announcement as a “distraction” as the nation continues to grapple with supply issues.

Murdoch Children‘s Research Institute pediatrician and group leader of Asia-Pacific health Fiona Russell said clinical trials had shown the jab was highly effective in teens, with one study suggesting it could be as high as 100 per cent in 12 to 15-year-olds.

Sydney mother of three Delia Burrage, a vocal vaccine advocate from Bronte in Sydney’s east, welcomed the decision, saying that she would be happy for her son Hugo, 13, to be vaccinated as well as 11-year-old son Jasper and daughter Frankie, 9, when they were old enough. “I have no qualms whatsoever, we don‘t live in a perfect world where people have the option of not vaccinating children.”