Jabs for teens by year’s end
Teenagers should be vaccinated against coronavirus before the end of the year, while children as young as 6 months old could soon be vaccinated safely, experts said after the Pfizer vaccine was yesterday provisionally approved for use on Kiwi children as young as 12.
Expanding the age range promises to help New Zealand reach herd immunity, with children aged under 18 equating to about a quarter of the population, said University of Otago epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker. Vaccinating children also reduced
the impact of vaccine-hesitant adults on herd immunity by increasing the total proportion of the population that has been innoculated against the coronavirus. ‘‘Herd immunity is a numbers game. If you want to achieve 60-70 per cent coverage, you ideally want to include children,’’ he said.
Medsafe yesterday announced the Pfizer vaccine could be used on children aged between 12 and 15, following regulators in Europe, the United States, Canada and Japan.
Separately, Pfizer said it would begin testing its vaccine on children aged as young as 6 months after using a lower dose of the shot in an earlier stage of the trial this month.
The vaccine was not approved for children at the same time as adults because it had not been thoroughly studied in children.
But while children rarely get seriously ill or die from Covid
19, they have more opportunities to spread the disease than other age groups.
Vaccinating them protected other vulnerable groups – such as grandparents.
‘‘They have huge social networks and their hygiene is questionable, their sense of personal space is minimal,’’ Baker said, describing the scope for children to spread the virus.
However, ensuring all people eligible for a vaccine in group 1 were inoculated against the virus was of a higher importance to keeping Covid-19 out of the community, he said.
Professor Michael Plank, from Te Pu¯ naha Matatini and University of Canterbury, said expanding the age range to include 12 to 15-year-olds was good news.
Children can still suffer significant long-term health complications as a result of Covid19, known as
‘‘long Covid’’, he said.
‘‘This approval is based on solid data showing the vaccine is safe and highly effective for this age group,’’ Plank said. ‘‘Vaccinating children will be an important part of maximising our collective immunity against
Covid-19. The higher we can get this collective immunity, the more options we will have for safely allowing international travel to resume.’’
There are 10 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine on order for New Zealand this year, enough for 5 million people.
The new rules bring 265,000 children into the roll-out plans, which promise to vaccinate every New Zealander by the end of the year.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the Government did not need to buy any more doses to cover the children and noone would miss out as a result of the decision.
More than 1 million doses have arrived in New Zealand so far.
The Cabinet had to decide to use the vaccine for under-16s, which it was expected to do later this month, while teenagers were expected to become eligible for the vaccine towards the end of the year, Ardern said yesterday.
‘‘The next step is for the Government to review advice from the Ministry of Health about the ‘decision to use’, and we expect to make a decision later this month. Until that decision is made, youth aged 12-15 won’t be given the vaccine,’’ she said.