HEALTH experts recommended Covid-19 vaccination for children starting at 12 after more than 80,000 young people were reported to have been infected.

Singapore will administer the Pfizer-BioNTech jab for children 12 to 17 and doctors said Malaysia should follow suit.

Malaysian Public Health Physicians’ Association president Dr Zainal Ariffin Omar said Malaysia should start inoculation as soon as possible given the large number of children infected with the coronavirus.

“We can protect our children and they can go to school. They have lost quite a significant number of schooldays since last year,” he said.

“Currently, only the Pfizer vaccine is recommended for use in children (aged 12 and above). The government has to review the existing policy,” he said.

Virologist Dr Chee Hui Yee from the Medicine and Health Sciences Falculty in Universiti Putra Malaysia said children should be immunised after the adults.

She added Covid symptoms in children are generally milder. From January last year until May,  82,341 cases of infected were reported in children 0 to 17 years old.

Health Ministry statistics show that in Malaysia, the virus infected 19,851 children below the age of four, 8,237 aged five and six; 26,851 aged seven to 12; and 27,402 aged 13 to 17.

Pfizer has said that its vaccine in clinical trials has shown itself to be 100% efficacious in adolescents aged 12-15.

The US Center for Disease Control and Prevention has also recommended the vaccine for use in children between the ages of 12 and 15.

In Malaysia, the National Security Council has ordered children below 12 to stay home during the lockdown. – June 3, 2021.