Health

Australia to vaccinate children aged 5-11 years from January

Sydney, Australia, Dec 10 (EFE).- Australia announced Friday that it will vaccinate children aged 5-11 from Jan. 10 after vaccination experts recommended the Pfizer vaccine for that age group.

“In one month from today, around 2.27 million Aussie kids aged five to 11 years will have the opportunity to roll up their sleeve and get vaccinated against Covid-19,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in a statement.

The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation has recommended an eight-week interval between the two Pfizer doses for children, which can be shortened to three weeks under special circumstances such as an outbreak.

Australian authorities began inoculating children 12-15 years in September, of which 70 percent have already been fully vaccinated.

After several problems that delayed its vaccination campaign, Australia has managed to catch up to become one of the countries with the highest vaccination rates.

Eighty-nine percent of Australians aged 16 years and over have received two doses of the vaccine.

The country managed to keep the virus at bay by closing its borders and implementing early lockdowns, but the Delta variant has proven more difficult to control and resulted in a surge in infections.

The country, which has 25 million inhabitants, has recorded 222,000 Covid-19 infections and around 2,000 deaths, very low figures compared to other similar-sized populations. EFE

aus-raa/pd/tw

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