KUALA LUMPUR – The government will not make the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme for Kids (PICKids) mandatory.
On the contrary, Covid-19 vaccination for kids are done voluntarily and there will be no travel ban on children, as imposed on unvaccinated adults.
Taking into consideration of the concerns of the parents, Minister of Health, Khairy Jamaluddin Abu Bakar said that the government is aware that many parents practise the wait and see approach before registering their children for PICKids.
“I read in the social media on how the public, especially the parents requested that there should be no obligation. I give my guarantee.
“If we don’t allow the adults to enter eateries, shopping malls and such, we do not have such conditions for children. They are given the exemption because we want the parents to have the confidence first,” he said after launching PICKids at the Tunku Azizah Hospital today.
Khairy said, 15 percent of the people have made their appointment since the registration for PICKids was opened.
Meanwhile, he also said that a gap of eight weeks between the first and second dose was given in the kids vaccination although several other countries have a shorter primer gap for children aged between five to 11 years-old.
“What we used to determine these eight weeks was to reduce the risk of post-vaccination adverse events, thus, boosting the confidents of the public, especially the parents,” he said. -MalaysiaGazette
Read More:
624,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children arrived
