TORONTO – A spokeswoman for Ontario’s health minister says children born in 2017 will have to wait for their fifth birthday to be eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine.
Alexandra Hilkene says the orientation will remain in place for now.
It’s a change from the rules that were in effect when Pfizer-BioNTech’s pediatric COVID-19 vaccine was approved for use in children ages five to 11 in Canada last month.
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At that time, all children born in 2016 or earlier were eligible to receive a vaccine in Ontario.
Last week, the Ontario Ministry of Health tweeted that anyone born in 2017 would be eligible for their vaccine starting in early January; a tweet Hilkene said was posted “by mistake” because the province had not yet made a decision on it.
Pfizer continues to test its vaccines for use in children under the age of five, but reported last week that it was adding a third dose to trials because the usual two injections did not seem strong enough for some of the children.
© 2021 The Canadian Press
Reference-globalnews.ca