The World Health Organization’s vaccine advisory group, SAGE, updated recommendations of use for the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine to now include children down to the age of 5, with a reduced dosage being given to those between 5 and 11 years old, Alejandro Cravioto, chair of SAGE, said on Friday. Previously SAGE made no recommendation on vaccinating this younger age group.
SAGE met Wednesday to discuss updated recommendations on the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
“For the Pfizer BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, SAGE reviewed new evidence regarding age of administration,” said Cravioto during a news briefing. “We have updated the interim recommendations of this product to extend the age indication down to five years, with a reduced dosage for those 5 to 11 years.”
The SAGE Pfizer/BioNTech recommendations say that the intended use of the vaccine is for persons age 5 and up, with a recommended schedule of two doses, 30 micrograms for those age 12 and up and 10 micrograms for 5- to 11-year-olds, given four to eight weeks apart.
Cravioto noted that this age group is in the lowest priority use group for vaccination in WHO’s vaccination roadmap, except children with comorbidities who are in the high priority group.
Pfizer vaccine boosters for all ages were also addressed. Previously, WHO recommended additional vaccine doses only to those who were immunocompromised. The latest update is the strongest recommendation on boosters the agency has made.
“SAGE has updated the interim recommendation for the use of booster doses of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine, emphasizing the need to start with the highest priority use groups, such as older adults and health workers, four to six months after the completion of the primary series,” Cravioto said, adding that the objective of the booster is to restore vaccine effectiveness of the primary series, which has shown to decline over time.
The interim recommendations from SAGE say that if more than six months have passed since first series completion, boosters should be given to those in the highest priority groups as soon as possible. Once there is high booster dose coverage in these high priority groups, then boosters for lower priority groups could be considered, they said.
