COMMENT | Covid-19: Can we afford to delay vaccinating our young children?

COMMENT | Many parents were dismayed by the recent news from Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin who said that the vaccines for children aged five to 11 will only arrive at the end of June 2022.

It means that our young children who attend kindergarten and primary school will remain vulnerable for another seven to eight months.

It is important to note that this delay is not due to a lack of effort - Malaysia is one of the earliest to have made a request to purchase the Pfizer vaccine for younger children.

But, as we well know, many developed nations are pushing to get the new Pfizer vaccine formulation for younger children and hence this pushes us lower in the queue, even though our negotiations were very early.

We would like to discuss what options are available to us. We will not discuss issues related to the safety of the use of the Covid-19 vaccine in young children.

We refer you to documents and evidence by the...