Covid jabs will be given to vulnerable BABIES: Health chiefs recommend two Pfizer doses
Babies with underlying conditions will be offered a Covid vaccine, UK health chiefs confirmed today.
About 60,000 babies ages six months to four years are eligible for two Pfizer shots.
They include children with poorly controlled asthma and problems with their heart, kidneys, liver or digestive system.
While Covid poses a minor threat to the vast majority of children, some are at risk for more serious illness. Vaccinations are the “best way to increase their protection,” according to the government’s vaccination task force.
NHS sites will start offering jabs in mid-June. Parents should wait to be contacted before reporting, officials said.
NHS England has confirmed it will start offering jabs to those eligible in England from mid-June
The latest data from the UK Health Security Agency suggests 51 children under the age of four have died within four weeks of testing positive for Covid since the start of the pandemic
The latest data from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) suggests 51 children under the age of four have died from Covid since the start of the pandemic.
But this toll includes anyone who tested positive for the virus within four weeks of death, so it could be a slight overestimate.
In a report published today, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization, which advises the government on the rollout of the jab, said eligible young people should receive two 3 microgram doses of Pfizer’s Covid vaccine, with a interval of at least eight weeks.
If a child has recently been infected with the virus, it should not be stung until at least four weeks later, it said.
Further advice on third doses of the low-dose formulation for those in the immunosuppressed cohort will be issued “in due course,” the JCVI said.
Healthy children in the age group are not currently eligible, it added.
Professor Wei Shen Lim, chair of the JCVI’s COVID-19 committee, said: ‘For the vast majority of babies and children, Covid causes only mild symptoms, or sometimes no symptoms at all.
“However, for a small group of children with pre-existing health problems, it can lead to a more serious illness, and for them, vaccination is the best way to increase their protection.”
The JCVI’s advice follows a review of Covid vaccine trials in children in the US, including safety data and monitoring of the virus among young people in the UK.
Data suggests at-risk children aged six months to four years are seven times more likely to be admitted to intensive care with severe Covid, it said.
But more than 90 percent of the cohort has already been infected and admission rates “have remained low,” the report says.
More than 1 million U.S. children ages six months to four years have received at least one dose of Pfizer since June 2022.
Irritability, crying, drowsiness and fever are the most common side effects, while one to two percent of children had a severe fever.
The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) gave the green light to the age group jab in December, ruling it to be safe and effective.
But the JCVI then gives advice on how to distribute it.
Dr. Mary Ramsay, head of immunization at the UKHSA, said: ‘Covid is still circulating, with thousands of new cases every week.
“The added protection the vaccine provides could be important for young children in clinical risk groups, who are at greater risk of serious illness.
“The virus is not going away, so I would encourage all parents to bring their child forward if they are eligible.
“Parents should wait to be contacted by their local health workers.”
Health Secretary Steve Barclay said: ‘Children are at very low risk of harm from Covid.
“However, there are a very small number of children with health problems that make them particularly vulnerable, and for those children we want to give parents the choice of whether or not to vaccinate their child at risk.
‘I have adopted the advice of the Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunization on vaccinating children aged six months to four years who belong to a clinical risk group.
“It’s a parental decision, and this advice is simply designed to empower parents of children with medical conditions to choose whether they want protection.”