Indonesia’s Food and Drugs Monitoring Agency (BPOM) has recommended COVID-19 jabs for children as young as 12, a document has shown, as the country looks set to expand its vaccination eligibility criteria.
An official BPOM letter to state pharmaceutical firm Bio Farma, which has circulated online, shows that the agency has all but given the green light for children aged 12-17 to get the Sinovac jab, off the back of China’s Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the vaccine to be administered to children as young as 3 years old.
Related — Following China’s lead, Indonesia may approve Sinovac’s vaccine for children as young as 3
“The safety [of the Sinovac vaccine] for the population aged 12-17 is strengthened by clinical trial data for adults, as the maturity level of the immune system of teens is akin to that of adults,” the document reads.
“Epidemiological data for COVID-19 in Indonesia shows a high mortality rate [for COVID-19 patients] aged 10-18, which is 30 percent.”
Bio Farma locally processes the Sinovac vaccine, the majority of which is shipped to Indonesia from China in bulk form.
BPOM has yet to issue an EUA for the administration of the Sinovac vaccine for children aged 12-17. The agency has also recommended clinical trials of the vaccine on children aged 6-11, later to be followed by clinical trials for children aged 3-5.
According to the Indonesian Pediatric Society (IDAI), one in eight COVID-19 patients in Indonesia are children. Among them, 3 to 5 percent have died from the disease, half of whom are under five years old.
Indonesia was set on reopening schools by the time the new academic year begins in July, but schools located in high-risk COVID-19 zones may postpone the reopening amid a devastating second major wave of the outbreak in the country.
