Covid-19: No adverse side effects from vaccination among kids so far, says Khairy

PUTRAJAYA: There have been no reports so far of adverse side effects among children aged five to 11 who have been vaccinated against Covid-19, says Khairy Jamaluddin.

“Almost 18,000 children between five and 11 years old have received their vaccination and so far, there have been zero reports,” said the Health Minister.

He also said that reports of adverse side effects among youth aged 12 to 17 had been very minimal.

“Some 5.6 million children in that age group received their vaccination and there were only 74 reports of adverse side effects.

“This represents a ratio of 0.0013 per thousand doses,” he said at a press conference on Monday (Feb 7).

Overall, Khairy said that a total of 24,788 reports of side effects have been reported since the start of the national immunisation programme.

“This means that the ratio of reports of side effects is 84 per one million for the booster doses, which is four times lower than the 390 per one million with regard to the prime vaccination doses,” he said.

Of the reports of side effects involving booster doses, he said only 64 were deemed serious, representing only five cases per million doses.

He also said that the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) had been directed to make public the status of reports on adverse side effects on a weekly basis.

This, he said, is to dispel claims of serious adverse side effects from booster shots making its rounds on social media.

Vaccination of children aged five to 11 under the PICKids programme began on Feb 3 and will involve an estimated four million children nationwide.

The children in the age range will be given the mRNA vaccine, Comirnaty 10mcg Concentrate for Dispersion from Pfizer-BioNTech, which was formulated for those in the age group.