Children aged between five and 11 years old in England will be offered the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine following advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).
The decision comes after the JCVI advised that children in this age-bracket who were in a clinical risk group should receive two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, in December 2021. Now the group is advising that vaccination should be offered to all children aged between five and 11 years old, though on a non-urgent basis.
The JCVI said that the decision was made to increase England’s immunised population against severe Covid-19 and in advance of any potential future waves of Covid-19.
Health and Social Care Secretary Sajid Javid said: “I have accepted the advice from the independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) to make a non-urgent offer of Covid-19 vaccines to all children aged 5 to 11 in England.
The NHS is already offering vaccines to at-risk children and those who live with immunosuppressed people in this age group.
The JCVI advice follows a thorough review by our independent medicines regulator, the MHRA, which approved Pfizer’s paediatric vaccine as safe and effective for children aged 5 to 11.
Children without underlying health conditions are at low risk of serious illness from Covid-19 and the priority remains for the NHS to offer vaccines and boosters to adults and vulnerable young people, as well as to catch-up with other childhood immunisation programmes.
The NHS will prepare to extend this non-urgent offer to all children during April so parents can, if they want, take up the offer to increase protection against potential future waves of COVID-19 as we learn to live with this virus.”
The British Medical Association (BMA) welcomed the news.
Dr Penny Toff, chair of the BMA public health medicine committee, said: “We welcome the new guidance from the JCVI on vaccinating children aged 5-11 and encourage families to take up this offer once further details are available. After two years, Covid-19 is still causing significant short and longer-term illness, hospitalisation and deaths and huge disruption to healthcare, the economy and education.
“Fortunately, young children are generally at lower risk of serious illness from Covid-19 but vaccinating as many people as possible, including children and young people - along with other protective measures such as mask wearing and isolation when infected - will reduce the spread of infection, meaning fewer absences from educational settings and workplaces and bringing us closer to 'living with Covid' sustainably. “We would ask people not to contact their GPs just yet while we wait for further details, from NHS England, on how these vaccines will be given to children and meanwhile we encourage adults to get their boosters and older children and teenagers to take the opportunity of half-term to get their first or second doses.”
The JCVI is advising that children should receive their two doses with an interval of at least 12 weeks between doses.
For deployment sites, the JCVI urges that since most children will not be in a clinical risk group, the delivery of other paediatric non-Covid-19 or Covid-19 immunisation programmes should be prioritised.
More so, the delivery of paediatric non-Covid-19 immunisation programmes across all ages should receive due attention, particularly where vaccine coverage has fallen behind due to the Covid-19 pandemic and where there is evidence of health inequalities, the JCVI states.