Coronavirus: Hong Kong could prioritise older children under plan to extend Sinovac jabs scheme to minors

Government considering offering the Sinovac jab to 12- to 17-year-olds before opening it up to younger age groups, source says

Expert panel this week recommended lowering the minimum age to three for getting vaccinated with mainland-produced jab

Reading Time:3 minutes

An expert panel has recommended that Hong Kong extend the Sinovac Covid-19 jabs programme to under 18s. Photo: K. Y. Cheng

Published: 1:57pm, 16 Nov 2021Updated: 10:23pm, 16 Nov 2021

Hong Kong is looking at prioritising Covid-19 vaccination for young people aged 12 to 17 under a plan to extend the Sinovac jabs programme to minors, the Post has learned.

An official source said the government was considering only offering the vaccine to older children initially, a similar arrangement to the one in mainland China, but added the administration would first seek advice from the Centre for Health Protection’s joint scientific committee.

The government’s Covid-19 vaccine advisers on Monday recommended lowering the minimum age to three years for getting vaccinated with the mainland-produced Sinovac jab, from the current 18.

Currently, the minimum age for receiving a coronavirus jab in Hong Kong is 12, but only with the BioNTech vaccine. The German manufacturer has not submitted an application to lower that.

The government’s Advisory Panel on Covid-19 Vaccines urged the health authorities on Monday to contact Fosun Pharma, the agent distributing BioNTech vaccines in Hong Kong and Macau, to obtain more data for experts to examine the possibility of offering the jab to children aged five to 11.

Dr Ho Pak-leung, an infectious diseases expert from the University of Hong Kong, said on Tuesday the city needed to lower the Sinovac age threshold to 12 or below to ensure more of the population was vaccinated.

He suggested the government roll out the Sinovac vaccination scheme for youngsters in phases, starting with secondary school pupils, before opening it up to those in primary school and kindergarten.

“Safety of the vaccine is the most important issue … The effectiveness of the Sinovac jab [for children] still needs to be backed up by phase 3 clinical data and real-world observational data, ” he told a radio programme.