FDA approves Pfizer for children below 5 years
Thailand’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the use of Pfizer’s Comirnaty Covid-19 vaccine (magenta cap) for children aged 6 months to under 5 years, said FDA secretary-general Dr Paisan Dankhum on Wednesday.
The FDA had earlier approved the vaccine for children aged 5-11 at 30 micrograms per dose. For kids aged 6 months to under 5 years, the dose will be adjusted down to 10mcg for the first two jabs three weeks apart.
For booster shots, the Comirnaty vaccine will be given at 3mcg per dose eight weeks after the second jab.
“With three doses, the vaccine’s efficacy against Covid-19 will rise to 80.3 per cent,” said Paisan.
On Thursday morning Thailand recorded 2,002 confirmed Covid-19 cases and 29 deaths in the past 24 hours, while 1,742 patients have recovered and been discharged from hospital. The number of cumulative cases in the country since January 1, 2022, stands at 2,417,828 with 10,440 deaths.
As of Wednesday the country had administered 142.5 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines, with 57.2 million being first jabs (82 per cent of the population), 53.6 million being second shots (77 per cent), and 31.6 million being third jabs and over (45.5 per cent).