THE Federal Government has accepted a recommendation from the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) to make a Moderna COVID-19 vaccine available to children aged six months to under five years in certain at-risk population groups.
Approximately 70,000 young children at higher risk of developing severe illness from COVID-19 will be able to receive a vaccination from September 5.
The government has secured 500,000 doses of the specific vaccine for this age group and initial supplies will be arriving in Australia later this week and distributed to vaccination sites.
Health Minister Mark Butler said at this stage, COVID-19 vaccination is only recommended for children aged six months to under five years who are severely immunocompromised, disabled, and those who have complex and/or multiple health conditions which increase the risk of severe COVID-19.
Given the particular needs of this group of children and the small size of the cohort to be vaccinated, only a small proportion of vaccination sites will deliver this vaccine. These sites will be identified on the Vaccine Clinic Finder and bookings will open later this month
ATAGI is not currently recommending COVID-19 vaccination for children aged six months to under five years who are not at increased risk.
“ATAGI’s reasons for that is that these children aged under five have a very low likelihood of severe illness from COVID-19,” Mr Butler said.
“They go on to say, given that this is a very new vaccine, only been rolled out very few countries so far, that this is under ongoing consideration based on the data of the disease burden and epidemiology, vaccine supply, emerging data on vaccine use in this age group and the availability of new vaccines for the age group as well.
“The recommendation for this group is that they’d be provided with two doses of the vaccine eight weeks apart. And for these children who are immunocompromised, that they’d be given a third dose as well. Our estimate is this covers around 70,000 young children at the most around half of whom will require three doses or are recommended to have three doses, which adds to a total of around 175,000 doses in total.”
Australia will be one of the first countries in the world to roll out a vaccination program for children aged under five.
