Brazil regulator greenlights Covid booster for children and teens

Anvisa, the Brazilian federal health regulator, on Monday authorized a single booster dose of Pfizer’s monovalent Covid vaccine for children and teenagers aged 5 or more.

For over a year, booster shots have been offered to adults. Separately, the Health Ministry in May recommended the booster shot for teenagers only. Municipalities nationwide have since been giving teens the booster.

Teenagers aged 12 and over are immunized with the same Pfizer formulation given to adults — the one with a purple cap. Children aged five to 11 are given a smaller dosage in a vial with an orange cap.

With Anvisa’s decision, teens aged 12 and up can get one of the recently approved bivalent formulations as a booster shot, or receive a third shot of the original formulation. Unlike in the U.S., use of the original monovalent vaccines as boosters was not revoked.

According to official data, only about 50 percent of Brazilian children aged five to 11 have received two jabs and thus would be eligible for a booster. Six months ago, the rate was 42 percent. Among teens, the vaccination rate is higher, with around 70 percent having received two jabs of the Covid vaccine.

In July, The Brazilian Report reported that the Health Ministry had still not shipped enough vaccines to immunize all children aged five to 11. Since then, Covid vaccination for children has remained at a very slow pace.

• #regulation
• #vaccine