Vaccines for all 5 year olds

Is the vaccine interval advice in the United States sub-optimal, increasing myocarditis?

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JCVI updates advice on vaccinations for 5 to 11 age group

December 22nd JCVI recommended the vaccine be offered to at-risk 5 to 11 year olds,

rollout of which officially began at the beginning of February

5 million

Although this age group is generally at very low risk of serious illness from the virus,

a very small number of children who get infected do develop severe disease.

Latest evidence suggests that offering the vaccine ahead of another potential wave,

will protect this very small number of children from serious illness and hospitalisation,

and will also provide some short-term protection against mild infection across the age group.

The committee has therefore advised

a non-urgent offer to all 5 to 11 year olds of 2 (10mcg) doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech paediatric vaccine.

The 2 doses should be given with an interval of at least 12 weeks between doses.

International data from adult programmes

a longer interval between doses

(greater than the 3 to 4-week schedule widely used in the United States)

is associated with a lower reporting rate of myocarditis following vaccination.

This association is expected to also apply to the paediatric dose and formulation when used in children.

Professor Wei Shen Lim, Chair of COVID-19 immunisation on the JCVI

The main purpose of offering vaccination to 5 to 11 year olds is to increase their protection against severe illness in advance of a potential future wave of COVID-19.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England will advise on their plans for operationalising the latest JCVI recommendations in due course.

Professor Paul Hunter

I would lean against offering it to this age group for a number of reasons

they are actually falling really quickly at the moment

and we’re seeing fewer than half the cases in this age group than we saw in little more than a week ago

The only reason why they were given it was to hopefully protect them against disruption to schooling

and we haven’t seen that vaccines have done a huge amount to stop those interruptions

Mr Javid

The NHS will prepare to extend this non-urgent offer to all children during April so parents can, if they want, take up the offer to increase protection against potential future waves of Covid-19 as we learn to live with this virus

It is estimated that over 85% of all children aged 5 to 11 will have had prior SARS-CoV-2 infection by the end of January 2022,

with roughly half of these infections due to the Omicron variant.

Natural immunity arising from prior infection will contribute towards protection against future infection and severe disease.

use of the Pfizer-BioNTech 10 mcg paediatric formulation vaccine should be encouraged for all pupils in the relevant academic year for children aged 11 to 12 to reduce complexity in programme delivery and expected reactogenic events for individuals

This advice on the offer of vaccination to 5 to 11-year olds who are not in a clinical risk group is considered by JCVI as a one-off pandemic response programme.

As the COVID-19 pandemic moves further towards endemicity in the UK,

JCVI will review whether, in the longer term, an offer of vaccination to this, and other paediatric age groups, continues to be advised.

ONS

10 January to 17 January, antibodies

Children, 12 to 15, 90.2% to 93.3%

Children, 8 to 11, 63.3% to 72.7%

At or above 42 ng/ml

Antibodies concentration in nanograms per millilitre (ng/ml)

Immunoglobulins IgG, based on SARS-CoV-2 trimeric spike protein

A negative antibody test does not mean that a person is not protected

A person may have tested positive for antibodies at one time, but then have a negative test result later

Antibody threshold levels and unit measurement