PARENTS taking their children for a Covid-19 vaccination from next month should be allowed to go on unrecorded leave, Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said today.

“I would like to take this opportunity to ask employers to grant unrecorded leave to parents who bring their child for vaccination and also to be able to observe the health status of their child after vaccination,” Khairy said at a press conference in Parliament.

Earlier Khairy announced that vaccination for children ages five to 11 would begin on February 3.

Children in this age category will only receive paediatric doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s Cominarty vaccine, which he said is proven to be safe and effective.

“The Health Ministry targets 70% of children ages five to 11 years old to have received one dose of the Pfizer vaccine within two months of the launch of the programme, while 80% will receive a complete dose within six months of implementation,” he said.

Khairy said results of clinical studies of paediatric Pfizer vaccines showed effectiveness of 90.7%, as well as the ability to enhance the elevated immune response against the Covid-19 disease.

However, the health minister did not rule out the possibility of side effects.

“Like other vaccines, the Pfizer vaccine specially formulated for these children can also have side effects.

“Side effects commonly experienced by children are pain at the injection site, redness and swelling.

“Systemic responses also include fatigue, dizziness, muscle aches, chills and fever. Most of the side effects of this vaccine are mild to moderate, as well as not long lasting,” he said.

Using data from several countries, Khairy said that the incidence of myocarditis or heart muscle inflammation after mRNA vaccination is very low.

“The United States has administered nearly 8.7 million doses of this special paediatric vaccine and early data found that the incidence of adverse event following immunization (AEFI) was significantly lower than the incidence of AEFI among adolescents ages 12 to 17 years,” he said. – January 20, 2022.