Almost 18,000 COVID vaccine doses administered to children aged 5 to 11

Figures tabled in parliament show that 17,953 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered to children between 5 and 11, with more than 5,000 having received their second dose

1 February 2022, 11:11am
by Laura Calleja

1 min read

Children aged 5 to 11 started receiving their first COVID vaccine dose during the Christmas holidays (File photo)

5,069 children aged 5 to 11 have received the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to figures tabled in parliament.

Health Minister Chris Fearne said that as of 26 January, 17,953 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine had been administered to children aged between 5 and 11.

The European Medicines Agency authorised the use of Pfizer-BoNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine for children back in November. The rollout to this cohort began in Malta on 14 December.

Fearne was replying to a parliamentary question by Nationalist MP Ivan Bartolo.

Vaccination rate for 16 to 29-year-olds

The health minister also said that as of 26 January, 164,548 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine had been administered to those aged between 16 and 29, of which 81,029 were second doses. Moreover, 46,082 persons in this cohort had received the COVID-19 booster dose.

The booster dose is currently only available for those over 18.

As of yesterday, 1,210,946 doses of the COVID-19 were administered, of which 329,806 are booster doses.

Laura Calleja is features editor at MaltaToday