Portugal, France to vaccinate younger children in fight against Omicron variant

Name: U.K. breaks daily Covid-19 record as Omicron likely to become dominant strain in E.U. by mid-January
Uploaded: 2021-12-18T09:59:14.000Z
Duration: 2 min 17 s
Description: U.K. breaks daily Covid-19 record as Omicron likely to become dominant strain in E.U. by mid-January

Portugal began jabbing over-fives on Saturday, while France plans to begin rolling out injections for the same age group on Wednesday, following other nations already inoculating many youngsters

But EU health agency says vaccines alone take too long; measures like mask-wearing, distance working, preventing crowds essential to reduce burden on health care systems in time available

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A girl receives a dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in Paris, France. Vaccination against Covid-19 will be proposed to children aged 5 to 11 years from December 22 “if all goes well”, said French Minister of Health Olivier Veran. Photo: AFP

Agence France-Presseanddpa

Published: 5:59pm, 18 Dec 2021

Portugal, one of the countries with the highest Covid-19 vaccination rates worldwide, began inoculating over-fives on Saturday, and France said it was ready to roll out jabs for them from next week.

Europe is currently battling to rein in the spread of the highly mutated Omicron variant of the coronavirus, believed to be much more infectious, and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen has warned the new strain could be dominant in Europe by mid-January.

A number of countries have already opened up their immunisation drives to younger children, even though the EU’s health agency has warned that jabs alone will not be sufficient to stop the variant’s rise.

A ‘tiger’ at a vaccination site in Portugal, where children aged five to 11 are now being vaccinated. Photo: EPA-EFE

In Portugal, where 88.9 per cent of the population is vaccinated, more than 60,000 children aged between five and 11 were set to receive their first jab of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine this weekend.

And in France, health minister Olivier Veran said jabs will start to be administered to children in the same age group from Wednesday.

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U.K. breaks daily Covid-19 record as Omicron likely to become dominant strain in E.U. by mid-January

“If all goes well, we will start vaccination of children on the afternoon of December 22 in specially adapted centres,” he said.

But even as children line up to get jabs, the EU health agency ECDC has said measures like mask-wearing, distance working and the prevention of crowds were essential to reduce the burden on health care systems in the time available, with vaccines alone taking too long.

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