The World Health Organization (WHO) expert advisory committee today recommended extending the use of a reduced dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against covid-19 for children aged 5 to 11 years.
The recommended dose for this age group is 10 micrograms instead of 30 micrograms for those over 12 years of age, said SAGE, which highlighted that those between 5 and 11 years of age constitute the lowest priority range, unless they have medical conditions. previous serious.
The WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) also agreed at its last meeting to recommend that the booster dose of this vaccine be applied first to risk groups, such as the elderly and health personnel, between four and six months later. having completed the guideline.
WHO experts urged countries with the lowest coverage of the vaccine to focus first on increasing it in the highest-risk groups before offering it to those at the lowest risk.
In countries with medium to high coverage in risk groups, the priority should be to offer the booster dose to these groups rather than immunize those with lower priority with the full schedule.
The SAGE described the dose production forecasts for this year as “positive announcements” and considers that it should guarantee the supply of vaccines globally.
“The number of planned monthly doses is sufficient to cover the different coverage scenarios of the different countries, including booster doses,” the director of the Department of Immunization of the World Health Organization (WHO) said at a virtual press conference. Kate O’Brien.
O’Brien clarified, however, that this will only be possible in the event that the distribution of vaccines ceases to be “uneven” and supply limitations are not repeated.
Coverage in 34 countries is still less than 10% of the total population, while in 86 it is around 40%, due to the accumulation of doses produced last year by some countries, the WHO expert recalled.
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