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Indonesia 'eager' to start vaccinating children as young as 5: Minister
Despite the slow pace of the nation’s child vaccination program, the government is seeking to lower the minimum age for COVID-19 vaccination to 5 by early next year.
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A child gets a measles and rubella vaccination in Manado, North Sulawesi, on Aug. 2, 2018. With vaccine hesitancy among parents still an issue for regular child vaccinations, experts are concerned this attitude may carry over to COVID-19 vaccines for minors. (Antara/Adwit Pramono)
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fficials are drawing up plans to expand the state child COVID-19 vaccination program by early next year to target children as young as 5, as part of wider efforts to anticipate a possible third wave of infection.
Amid concerns about a spike in mobility and, therefore, increased virus transmission during the year-end holidays, the government has moved to expand its vaccination target to reach the fabled herd immunity.
Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said on Tuesday that the government was waiting for the conclusion of clinical trials overseen by the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM) on three vaccines intended for use on younger children: the Chinese-made Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines and the United States’ Pfizer vaccine.
“For emergency use authorization [EUA], we are currently working with the BPOM to ensure we can greenlight the three vaccines for use on children between the ages of 5 and 11,” Budi said. “When the trial results are out, we can hopefully start using them early next year.”
Griffith University epidemiologist Dicky Budiman welcomed the government’s initiative, saying that children would need to be protected from the virus as mobility curbs and activity restrictions were gradually lifted.
“This is an important step for us to reach the threshold of herd immunity, because the road there is still long and we need as much of the population covered as possible,” he said on Wednesday.
Dicky said officials should take cues from other countries that had begun approving or distributing vaccines to children younger than 12, including the US.
