Vaccinating 5 to 11-year-old children in Australia against COVID-19 is a significant step closer, with the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) provisionally approving the Comirnaty (Pfizer) vaccine as safe and effective for use among this age group.
\nSubject to final considerations and recommendations from the vaccination experts on the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI), and other related approvals, the Australian Government will start rolling out the Pfizer vaccine to 5 to 11-year-olds from 10 January 2022.
\nThe Government expects to receive ATAGI\u2019s recommendations on how to incorporate this safe and effective vaccine into Australia\u2019s COVID-19 vaccination program over the coming weeks.
\nSubject to advice from ATAGI, vaccinating the approximately 2.3 million children aged 5 to 11 in Australia will build on the rapid uptake of vaccination among children aged 12 to 15. In just eleven weeks, more than 76.6% of this group have had at least one dose of vaccine, with 67.5% having completed their two-dose course of vaccination.
\nAcross the country, 87.9% of Australians aged 16 or over are fully vaccinated. More than 92.8% have had at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
\nThe TGA\u2019s provisional approval of the Pfizer vaccine for 5 to 11-year-olds was based on a careful evaluation of available data to support its safety and efficacy among this age group.
\nThe vaccine dose approved by the TGA for children aged 5 to 11 is the same safe and effective vaccine used for other age cohorts, however is one-third the dose approved for those aged 12 and over.
\nThe Pfizer vaccine for 5 to 11-year-olds will be distributed to vaccine providers in different packaging to the vaccine approved for people 12 and over, and will be clearly differentiated by being dispensed from orange-capped vials instead of grey or purple capped vials.
\nAs with other age groups, the use of this vaccine in children aged 5-11 years should be given in two doses at least 3 weeks apart.
\nAlready, significant planning work has been undertaken involving the COVID-19 Vaccines Taskforce, the states and territories primary health professionals in relation to how the vaccination rollout will be extended to children in this age group.
\nIt is expected the vaccines would initially be made available through General Practices Aboriginal Health Services, community pharmacies and state and territory clinics.
\nOnce the final ATAGI advice is received, further information on how to book a COVID-19 vaccination will be provided.
\nThe Commonwealth Government will continue to work closely with vaccine providers and states and territories as a priority to provide the opportunity for children aged 5 to 11 to receive a first dose of this COVID-19 vaccine in the lead up to and in parallel with school returning in 2022.
\nThe Government has an agreement in place with Pfizer to receive sufficient supply of the paediatric vaccine for the entire population of children aged 5 to 11 in Australia.
\nThe first shipment of children’s doses are due to arrive in Australia by early January 2022 and will undergo the same rigorous batch testing processes in the TGA laboratories as other batches of COVID-19 vaccines.
\nThe TGA is also currently evaluating an application from Moderna for its COVID-19 vaccine to be used in Australia for children aged 6 to 11 and the Government already has supply deals in place to make it available should it be approved by the TGA and recommended by ATAGI.
\nThis two step TGA and ATAGI assessment and approval process is the same rigorous process followed for all COVID-19 vaccine approvals in Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Vaccinating 5 to 11-year-old children in Australia against COVID-19 is a significant step closer, with the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) provisionally approving the Comirnaty (Pfizer) vaccine as safe and effective for use among this age group. Subject to final considerations and recommendations from the vaccination experts on the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI), … Continue reading “TGA provisionally approves Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for 5 to 11-year-olds”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14165\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}