Philippines approves Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine for 5 to 11 years old

The Philippine Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the emergency use authorization (EUA) for Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine for ages 5 to 11 years old.

FDA director general Dr. Eric Domingo made the announcement during the Laging Handa briefing on Thursday, a confirmation of his earlier statement that COVID-19 vaccine for the 5 to 11 age group would be available before year-end.

"It is reasonable to believe that the vaccine may be effective to prevent COVID-19 and the benefits outweigh the known and potential risks," Domingo said.

Domingo also noted that Pfizer's vaccine has an above 90% efficacy rate for children aged 5 to 11 years.

New purchase

Domingo said the government will have to make a new purchase for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine that will be used on 5 to 11 years old.

"We have informed the National Task Force and the Department of Health that we will have to order and procure this separately because the COVID-19 vaccine to be administered on aged 5 to 11 is different from those administered on adults," he said.

"Our present vaccine doses available are only for those aged 12 and above," Domingo added.

Acting presidential spokesperson Karlo Nograles earlier said the proposed P5-trillion budget for 2022 includes enough funds for procurement of COVID-19 vaccines.

NVOC

For her part, Dr. Kezia Rosario of the National Vaccination Operations Center (NVOC) said the government is still looking into how many doses will be procured for the age group.

“Sa ngayon pinag-aaralan pa ‘yung ilang doses ‘yung bibilhin. Kina-calcuate na po ito ngayon. This is being done by our policy team, ‘yung pag-procure ng ating bakuna. We don’t have the exact amount,” she said during the Laging Handa briefing.

Rosario said the NVOC estimates the population of those aged 5 to 11 to be around 20 million. However, she said this is still being calculated.

“We need to recalculate it also as we enter 2022 kasi iba na rin ‘yung projections nito versus that of our 2021 projections,” she said. 

The COVID-19 vaccination program in the country started last March 1 but was only able to cover those aged 12 to 17 by mid-November.

There are at least 45 million Filipinos fully vaccinated against COVID-19 so far.  —with Joahna Lei Casilao/KBK, GMA News