NHS To Roll Out Covid Jabs To The Most Vulnerable 5 to 11 Year Olds

The NHS is rolling out its covid vaccine programme this week, to children between 5 and 11 who are considered most at risk.

Children aged 5 -11 who are in a clinical risk group, or who live with someone who is in immunosuppressed, will be able to get their first covid jab in line with advice set out by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).

According to NHS England: There are around 500,000 eligible children in the latest cohort.

Eligible children include those with diabetes, immunosuppression, learning disabilities, and other conditions as outlined by the UK Health Security Agency in the Green Book.

Parents and guardians should wait for the NHS to contact them for when it is their child’s turn to get the life-saving vaccine with local NHS teams already contacting those who are eligible.

GP led teams have been identifying eligible children ahead of vaccinations starting to help get jabs into arms as quickly as possible.

Over 850 sites have already signed up to be part of the latest expansion – with vaccinations to 5-11 year olds being delivered initially by GP led vaccination teams and hospital hubs.

All eligible 5-11 year olds will be offered two 10 microgram doses of the Pfizer vaccine eight weeks apart – a third of the amount used for adult vaccinations.

Since the biggest and fastest vaccination rollout in NHS history expanded to children and young people, the NHS has already delivered over 3.5 million vaccinations to people aged 12-17, including over 2.4 million first doses.

And just two weeks after the expansion of the booster to all 16 and 17 year olds, over half of eligible young people in this age group have already received their top-up protection.

The NHS is also reminding parents and guardians that their children can continue to get protection from flu with millions of reminder texts, letters and emails going out next week.