Covid vaccine to be offered to vulnerable five to 11 year olds

Vulnerable primary school children should be offered a low-dose Covid vaccine, say government vaccine advisers.

Some older children should be offered a booster in response to the Omicron variant, they have said.

A low-dose version of a Covid vaccine for five to 11-year-olds has just been approved for use in the UK after being deemed safe and effective.

But a decision on vaccinating all five to 11-year-olds has not yet been made.

However, the priority in the NHS will remain on giving adults their third or booster dose of a Covid vaccine.

The low-dose vaccine by Pfizer-BioNTech contains one-third of the adult dose and should be given eight weeks apart. More than five million children have been given it in the US alone.

The drugs regulator - the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) - has licensed the vaccine for use.

Dr June Raine, chief executive of the MHRA, said: "Parents and carers can be reassured that no new vaccine for children would have been approved unless the expected standards of safety, quality and effectiveness have been met."

She said the overwhelming majority of side effects were mild, such as a sore arm or a flu-like illness.

The government's vaccine experts, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, then decided who would get it.

It said it should be limited for now to those who are clinically vulnerable due to conditions such as severe neuro-disability. Around 330,000 children would be eligible.

They also recommended the normal booster dose should be offered to:

Prof Wei Shen Lim, from the JCVI said: "Some 5 to 11 year olds have underlying health conditions that put them at higher risk, and we advise these children to be vaccinated in the first instance.

"For children and young people who have completed a primary course of vaccination, a booster dose will provide added protection against the Omicron variant."