Additional Covid booster to be made available for high-risk people
Additional Covid-19 booster shots will be made available for people whose health is severely immunocompromised.
The Health Department says this means that those between the ages of 18 and 49 years will be eligible to receive a total of four doses.
People aged 50 and older can receive five doses at a six-month interval.
In a statement this morning, the department says that all children aged between five to 11 years old and living with conditions that place them at a risk of severe Covid disease will be offered vaccination with two doses of the paediatric Pfizer vaccine early next year.
There'll be an interval of 21 days between the two jabs.
"This will include children with chronic respiratory, heart, neurological, kidney, liver and gastrointestinal conditions as well as those with certain endocrine disorders, serious genetic abnormalities and other conditions associated with immunosuppression," says spokesperson Foster Mohale.
"Despite the current low hospitalisation and mortality rates, the pandemic continues threaten the lives of vulnerable people.
"Vaccination still provide the best protection against severe disease as well as Long Covid, and the department therefore continues to encourage everyone to protect themselves through vaccination."
