The government will procure the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children aged from 5 to 12.

Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin, in a tweet today, said that the decision comes after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) endorsed the vaccine for children two days ago.

"82.4% of our adolescents partially vaccinated. 62% fully vaccinated. This will mean #ReopeningSchools safely," the Umno lawmaker said.

Khairy added that Putrajaya will also look at other options, such as the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine.
The announcement may pacify parents who are jittery about sending their children back to school next month, when the number of COVID-19 are still fluctuating.

Putrajaya has so far started vaccinating teens aged 12 and above, but kids aged under 12 are still unvaccinated.

Earlier, Khairy had said that over 400,000 cases of COVID-19 involving children have been reported until late September.

This is a huge jump compared to the only 12,000 cases reported throughout last year. The majority of the cases (252,569) involved schoolchildren, while 42,831 cases involved preschoolers.

To date, 2.44 million people have been infected with COVID-19 in the country, while 28,674 people have died from it.

The global coronavirus infection and death tally has surpassed 246 million, and 4.99 million, respectively.


Photo source: Financial Times