Australia aims to jab kids aged 5 to 11 from January

MELBOURNE • Australia, fast becoming one of the most-vaccinated countries against Covid-19, will likely start administering the shots for children under the age of 12 next January, officials said yesterday.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said medical regulators are still reviewing the health and safety data of the vaccinations for children aged five to 11, and are unlikely to make the decision this year.

"The expectation that they have set is the first part of January, hopefully early January," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Insiders programme. "But they are going as quickly as possible."

The United States Centres for Disease Control and Prevention this month recommended the Pfizer-BioNTech shot for broad use in the five-to-11 age group, after it was authorised by the Food and Drug Administration.

Army Lieutenant-General John Frewen, Australia's Covid-19 task force commander, told The Age newspaper that Australia has secured the necessary supplies.

"We have actually purchased sufficient supply for doses and boosters down to infants," he said.

Last Friday, Australia crossed the 90 per cent single-dose mark for those aged 16 and over, with 83 per cent having had two shots. The country has also vaccinated 57.7 per cent of children between the ages of 12 and 15, according to Health Ministry data.

Australia's high vaccination rates were key to its decision to partially reopen international borders this month - for the first time since the start of the pandemic - despite ongoing Delta variant outbreaks in the most populous states, New South Wales and Victoria.

Yesterday, there were 1,100 infections reported in the two states, home to nearly 60 per cent of the country's population. Five more people died.

However, despite the Delta outbreaks that had led to months of lockdown in the two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, the national tally of 191,000 infections and 1,596 deaths is far lower than those of many other developed nations.

New Zealand, which is also learning to live with the coronavirus through high vaccination rates, reported 207 new cases and one death, bringing the total number of confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic to 8,331 infections and 34 deaths.

REUTERS