PICKids: Malaysia aims to vaccinate 50% of children aged 5-11 with at least one dose by end of February

Malaysia has officially started PICKids, its COVID-19 vaccination programme for children below 12 today. According to Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin, PICKids is the last piece of the puzzle to the National Immunisation Programme which has already fully vaccinated 88.6% of teens (12-17 years old) and 97.9% of adults (18 years old and above) throughout the country.

The Health Minister iterated that the COVID-19 vaccination programme for younger children is conducted on a voluntary basis and no restrictions will be imposed on unvaccinated children. At the moment, 15% of children have been registered for PICKids by their parents and guardians, and there are a total of 3.6 million children in Malaysia aged between 5 to 11 years old. Parents and guardians can register their child via MySejahtera and book their preferred vaccination centre and time slot. The vaccines are offered for free to all children in Malaysia including citizens and non-citizens.

Khairy said PICKids is offered on a voluntary basis to give parents time to make an informed decision. He told reporters, “I know many parents are still worried, but it’s okay, we will continue providing them with the latest information.”

He said PICKids was important to prevent children from Multisystem Inflammation Syndrome in Children (MIS-C) complications, long Covid and death. According to the Ministry of Health, a total of 147,282 unvaccinated children aged 5 to 11 years old have been infected with COVID-19 and 26 deaths have been reported in the last 6 months.

For children below 12, the Ministry of Health has provided conditional approval for Pfizer’s Comirnaty 10mcg Concentrate for Dispersion for Injection. This is a different formulation used as it contains a lower mRNA concentration of 10ug instead of 30ug, and the injection volume is 0.2ml instead of 0.3ml.  

Khairy said Malaysia did not make the decision to use the vaccine in haste as clinical and real-world data from other countries such as Singapore had been carefully studied prior to making the decision. He said the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had approved Pfizer’s vaccine for children last October but Malaysia’s health regulators had taken extra time to do their research.

The Ministry of Health aims to vaccinate 70% of children in schools (7 to 11) within 2 months. It also aims to vaccinate 50% of total children (including 5-year-olds) in Malaysia with their first dose by the end of February 2022. For PICKids, children under 12 will be vaccinated with an 8-week interval instead of the usual 3-week interval for older individuals.

As of 2nd February 2022, Malaysia has already fully vaccinated 78.7% of the total population and 36.9% of received their boosters.

Khairy has also shared that he has also booked a vaccine appointment for his six-year-old son. He hopes more parents will book the COVID-19 vaccine appointment for their children.

[ SOURCE 2, IMAGE SOURCE ]