Civil servant Aylicia Tan accompanies her son, Donovan Tan, six, as he gets his Covid-19 vaccination at Sembawang CC. - The Straits Times/ANN
SINGAPORE (The Straits Times/ANN): The first day of Covid-19 vaccinations for children between six months and four years got off to a brisk start on Tuesday morning, with vaccination centres across the island crowded with parents and their children.
This comes after registrations opened last week for parents and guardians to get their children, aged between six months and four years, to receive Moderna’s Spikevax vaccine at one of five centres across the island, in areas such as Punggol, Tampines and Queenstown.
For those between six months and four years, the Moderna vaccine is given in two doses of 25 micrograms each, administered at least eight weeks apart..
The vaccination centre at One Punggol, which is operated by Thomson Medical, administered 53 doses of the vaccine to children between six months and four years in the first two hours.
Punggol is the town with the highest proportion of children aged below five, making up 8.3 per cent - or about 14,640 - of the estate’s 176,190 residents last year, according to figures from the Singapore Department of Statistics for 2021.
The centre - which was filled with the sounds of children crying as they got their jabs - was decorated with pictures of cartoon characters on the walls of the vaccination counters.
Parents told The Straits Times that they wanted their children to get vaccinated to protect them against severe Covid-19, amid the current wave of infections due to the XBB Omicron sub-variant.
Among those getting the jab in Punggol was four-year-old Shiraz Adam Shamsul, who was accompanied by his mother Nurul Atiqah.
Nurul and her husband decided that Shiraz should be vaccinated after the family caught Covid-19 in June this year.
“He was quite afraid of the needle, but when we explained to him what it was for, he was okay,” said the 32-year-old housewife.
Customer service manager Veronica Wong said she prepared her daughter Adaline Kong, four, for the vaccination.
“She knows I got the jab, papa got the jab, and our helper got the jab,” said the 50-year-old, adding that the nurse who administered the shot was “very assuring” and gentle.
The vaccination centre at Sembawang Community Club, which is run by Fullerton Health, received 400 registrations for jabs on Tuesday.
But the number of visitors had dwindled after the early morning crowd, with only about 10 children and their parents there at about noon.
General practitioner Melissa Chan, who was at the Sembawang centre, said that as a healthcare professional, she understood the importance of getting her 14-month-old son, Ethan Zheng, vaccinated.
Both mother and son caught Covid-19 in March, when Ethan was just six months old.
While her son’s symptoms were mild, the 28-year-old said she did not want him to catch it again while in infantcare.
Both Moderna’s Spikevax vaccine and Pfizer’s Comirnaty vaccine were approved by the Health Science Authority for use in children below five.
The three-dose Pfizer vaccine for children aged six months to four years is expected to be available by year-end.
