BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for toddlers to arrive in Hong Kong on Friday and will be available next week, authorities say
- Vaccine booking system will be updated soon, says undersecretary for health
- Paediatric version of the vaccine designed for children aged five to 11 was made available at four children community vaccination centres from Wednesday
The BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for children aged six months to five years old is expected to arrive in Hong Kong on Friday, and will be available at vaccination centres next week, health authorities have said.
Undersecretary for Health Libby Lee Ha-yun on Thursday said that with the introduction of the toddler vaccine, parents would have an additional option when considering vaccinating their children as young as six months.
“We have purchased the toddler version of the BioNTech vaccine, which is being delivered to Hong Kong, hoping that it will arrive tomorrow. We will later announce more details to the public,” Lee said.
“We are planning to provide these toddler formulations at community vaccination centres for children next week. We will update the booking system in the short term.”
Lee said the full course of the vaccination for toddlers would involve three doses, adding that the second shot should be taken at least 56 days after the first one and the third should be 90 days after that.
Professor Lau Yu-lung, chairman of the Scientific Committee on Vaccine Preventable Diseases, called the availability of the BioNTech vaccine for young children “good news”, because an additional option would encourage more parents to take their toddlers for a jab and drive up the inoculation rate among this age group.
“Having choices is very important in trying to push up vaccination uptake, so the addition of the BioNTech vaccine for children aged six months to five years is very welcome,” he said, appealing to parents to get their youngsters jabbed as soon as possible.
But Lau also said he was aware of some parents’ concerns over the vaccines, and did not expect the inoculation rate among toddlers under three years old to surge to between 50 and 60 per cent by the end of the year from below 20 per cent currently.
He said he hoped the arrival of the BioNTech vaccine would prompt more parents to get their toddlers jabbed so at least 40 per cent of that age group were protected by the end of the year.
The paediatric version of the vaccine designed for children aged five to 11 was imported into Hong Kong and made available from Wednesday at the four children community vaccination centres.
The government approved the emergency use of the toddler version of the German-made vaccine for children aged six months to five years old in mid-October.
Currently, only the Chinese-made Sinovac vaccine is available to children as young as six months.
As of Thursday, around 18.6 per cent of children aged 0 to two and 66.8 per cent of those aged between three to 11 have received the first dose of the Sinovac vaccine respectively.
Responding to a question about when the city would drop all travel restrictions, Undersecretary for Health Lee said because the latest round of social-distancing relaxation had been implemented on Thursday, the government had to observe its impact on the pandemic situation for a week.
“If the situation is positive, where the number of serious and critical cases continues to drop, there will be ample room for relaxation,” she said.
“We also hope that the public will do their best to vaccinate themselves during this period, allowing more room for Hong Kong to return to normalcy.”
Hong Kong on Thursday logged 5,245 Covid-19 infections, 416 of which were imported, and 10 additional deaths, bringing the total tally to 1,933,080 cases and 10,428 fatalities.
More to come ...
