Sinovac-Pfizer cocktail for 12- to 17-year-olds gets go-ahead
A cocktail of Sinovac and Pfizer Covid-19 vaccines was approved by the Public Health Ministry’s Immunity Promotion Subcommittee for children aged 12 to 17.
“The subcommittee approved the cocktail based on a study conducted by Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Medicine on children aged 12 to 17 who had received a Sinovac jab followed by a Pfizer jab,” Dr Wichan Pawan, from the Department of Disease Control, said on Thursday. “After two months, the children’s immunity against Covid-19 stood at the same level as those who had two jabs of the Pfizer vaccine.
“Based on data from China, 235 million children aged three to 17 have been given Sinovac jabs. Of them, about 19,000 developed adverse side effects,” Wichan said. “As for the Pfizer vaccine, data from the United States shows that of the one million children aged five to 17 years who received two Pfizer jabs, 133.6 developed myocarditis or heart inflammation, with the symptoms 10 times more prevalent among boys compared to girls.”
Wichan added that the subcommittee was looking into approving the Sinovac-Pfizer cocktail for children aged six to 11.
“So far, Thailand has vaccinated 66,165 out of 5.1 million children in the five to 11 age group,” he said. “Four vaccine formulae have been approved so far for children under the age of 18. They include two doses of Pfizer [paediatric formula with orange cap] at an interval of eight weeks for kids aged five to 11; two doses of Sinovac four weeks apart for the six to 17 group; two doses of Pfizer [purple cap] three to four weeks apart for the 12-17 age group; and the Sinovac-Pfizer cocktail four weeks apart for children aged 12-17,” he said.