By Ben Kerrigan-
The UK government has announced its decision to offer vaccination to all children between the ages of 5 and 11 advisory body. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI) – had advised the jab rollout be expanded to ensure everyone in that cohort is eligible for the jab and that ministers have taken on board this recommendation.
England today officially followed Scotland and Wales in announcing that all children aged 5-11 years will be offered the covid-19 vaccine, in line with advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI). Northern Ireland is expected to follow suit shortly.
The advice was reportedly handed to the UK government over a week ago and was expected to be published on 11 February, but was delayed following a disagreement over the plans with the government.
Wales was the first country in the UK to announce that its plans to offer the vaccine to children aged 5-11, but a disagreement with the Uk government Responding to questions during a plenary session at the Senedd on 15 February, the Welsh health minister, Eluned Morgan, said that it was a “shame” and “perplexing to understand” why the JCVI’s advice regarding younger children had not yet been published. She added, “But I have seen a copy of that advice, and we will be commencing the rollout of vaccinations for 5-11 year olds.”
The following day Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, said, “I can confirm that ministers have considered this draft advice and are content to accept its recommendations.” She said that discussions with health boards on the best way of delivering vaccinations to 5-11 year olds had already begun and that further information would be provided to parents and carers of children when the approach was finalized.
At that point the Department of Health and Social Care was still saying that it was “reviewing the JCVI’s advice as part of wider decision-making ahead of the publication of our long-term strategy for living with covid-19. More detail will be set out shortly.”
However, later on 16 February Javid said, “I have accepted the advice from the independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization to make a non-urgent offer of covid-19 vaccines to all children aged 5-11 in England.”
He added, “Children without underlying health conditions are at low risk of serious illness from covid-19, and the priority remains for the NHS to offer vaccines and boosters to adults and vulnerable young people, as well as to catch up with other childhood immunization programmes.
“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.”
Objecting parents of children in primary schools will protest the plans, though the consent of parents will be needed for all children within that very young age bracket to be vaccinated.
The Uk government said last year that pupils between the ages of 12 and 15 who are insistent on being vaccinated will be able to be vaccinated if their parents or guardian strongly objects after professional mediation, provided the pupil is considered to be ‘mature’.
On 22 December last year the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency approved the Pfizer covid-19 vaccine for children aged 5-11. At the end of January the NHS in all four nations then started to offer the Pfizer vaccine to children aged 5-11 who had specific medical conditions and those who lived with immunosuppressed people. The vaccine has also been administered to millions of children in this age group in other countries including Germany and the US.
Welcoming the announcement, Brian Ferguson, associate professor of immunology at the University of Cambridge, said, “There is an argument that it is now too late to offer the vaccine to this age group, as covid has torn through primary schools this winter; however, there are children who have not yet been exposed to covid who will benefit from immunization, and immunological data indicates that vaccination following infection generates powerful, broadly neutralizing antibodies that protect from most or all tested SARS-CoV-2 variants.
“Covid vaccination can also in some cases help reduce long covid symptoms.”
He added that the NHS in England will “prepare to extend this non-urgent offer to all children during April”.
Meanwhile, Northern Ireland’s health minister Robin Swann announced that the country would be carrying out the same move. Scotland and Wales have already announced that children aged five to 11 will be offered the jab, meaning almost six million individuals in this age group across the UK will now be eligible for the vaccine.
Mr Javid said he has accepted the advice from the JCVI to make a non-urgent offer of COVID-19 vaccines to all children aged five to 11 in England and that the jab is “safe and effective”.
Stressing to reporters that “this is a non-urgent offer”, he added: “It is something that’s there as an option for parents and they should decide for themselves whether it’s an offer that they want to take up, and all the information they need would be made available for them.”
In a statement confirming the plans, the health secretary said: “The JCVI advice follows a thorough review by our independent medicines regulator, the MHRA, which approved Pfizer’s paediatric vaccine as safe and effective for children aged five to 11.
“Children without underlying health conditions are at low risk of serious illness from COVID-19 and the priority remains for the NHS to offer vaccines and boosters to adults and vulnerable young people, as well as to catch-up with other childhood immunization programes.
“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.”