Covid-19: Over 80,000 children vaccinated over the weekend

The General Directorate of Health (DGS) announced this morning that more than 88,000 children in Portugal were vaccinated over the weekend against covid-19.

According to a statement from the DGS, over the weekend, up until 18:00 this Sunday, around 88,800 children were vaccinated against covid-19.

Also according to the same source, in addition to the 77,000 children who were scheduled for this weekend, on Saturday afternoon children aged between 9 and 11 were given the opportunity to be vaccinated without an appointment at vaccination centres throughout the country.

The vaccination of children will continue, according to the planned schedule.

Children aged 9 to 11 who were not vaccinated this weekend will have the opportunity to schedule vaccination for the next few days, dedicated to pediatric vaccination.

The Government estimates that the second doses of Pfizer’s pediatric vaccine will be administered between February 5th and March 13th of next year.

Until then, it is expected that, between January 6th and 9th, children aged between 7 and 9 will be vaccinated, with 15th and 16th days being reserved for the administration of the first dose to the group of 6 and 7 years old, and the 22nd and 23rd of January those aged 5 years will be vaccinated.

Children at high risk will have priority to be vaccinated, regardless of age, as long as they have a medical prescription, just by going to the centres to receive the vaccine against SARS-CoV-2.

The self-scheduling for the vaccination of children against covid-19 was opened on Monday 13th December, days after the Government announced the decision to vaccinate this age group, following the recommendation of the DGS.

Covid-19 has caused more than 5.33 million deaths worldwide since the start of the pandemic, according to the latest report by Agence France-Presse.

In Portugal, since March 2020, 18,778 people have died and 1,225,102 cases of infection have been recorded, according to data from the General Directorate of Health.

The respiratory disease is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, detected in late 2019 in Wuhan, a city in central China, and currently with variants identified in several countries.

A new variant, Omicron, classified as a concern by the World Health Organization (WHO), has been detected in southern Africa, but since the South African health authorities raised the alert on 24th November, infections have been reported in at least 89 countries from all continents, including Portugal.

Source Lusa

DISCUSS: Is it ‘too soon’ to be vaccinating children?