The Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (CARPHA) is cau­tion­ing re­gion­al Min­istries of Health against us­ing adult for­mu­la­tions of the Pfiz­er-BioN­Tech COVID-19 vac­cine for the vac­ci­na­tion of chil­dren aged 5 to 11 years of age, even as it en­cour­ages them to con­tin­ue rolling out their na­tion­al vac­ci­na­tion cam­paigns.

In an of­fi­cial state­ment, CARPHA is ad­vis­ing re­gion­al Min­istries of Health to await “the WHO Emer­gency Use List­ing of the U.S. FDA ap­proved vac­cine de­vel­oped specif­i­cal­ly for chil­dren 5-11 years of age.”

The fol­low­ing is the full text of CARPHA’s state­ment on the ad­min­is­tra­tion of Pfiz­er vac­cines to chil­dren aged 5 to 11 years…

Port of Spain (CARPHA) —  The Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (CARPHA) urges Min­istries of Health to con­tin­ue the roll­out of their COVID-19 vac­ci­na­tion cam­paigns.

Al­though CARPHA rec­og­nizes that up­take of the vac­cine is crit­i­cal to achiev­ing max­i­mum pro­tec­tion from se­vere dis­ease and death in the Re­gion, Dr. Ri­an Ex­tavour, Pro­gramme Man­ag­er, CARPHA Caribbean Reg­u­la­to­ry Sys­tem (CARPHA-CRS) cau­tions Mem­ber States against the use of any adult for­mu­la­tion of the Pfiz­er-BioN­Tech COVID-19 vac­cine for the vac­ci­na­tion of chil­dren aged 5 to 11 years of age.

Dr. Ex­tavour point­ed out that there is an ab­sence of in­for­ma­tion on test­ing of the phos­phate-buffered saline for­mu­la­tion in chil­dren 5-11 years. Al­so of great con­cern, is the in­creased pos­si­bil­i­ty of er­rors in ad­min­is­tra­tion with draw­ing up small­er vol­umes than 0.3mL which is the adult dose, from the adult for­mu­la­tion.

CARPHA Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor, Dr. Joy St. John added: “Er­rors in ad­min­is­tra­tion of frac­tion­at­ed dos­es can make vac­ci­na­tion of chil­dren aged 5-11 years with adult vac­cines a risky prac­tice. We are await­ing the WHO Emer­gency Use List­ing be­fore we rec­om­mend use of the U. S. FDA ap­proved vac­cine de­vel­oped specif­i­cal­ly for chil­dren 5-11 years of age.”

At this time, CARPHA-CRS has not yet rec­om­mend­ed the pae­di­atric for­mu­la­tion due to the ab­sence of con­fir­ma­tion of the new for­mu­la­tion by the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO) Pre­qual­i­fi­ca­tion team un­der the rel­e­vant Emer­gency Use List­ing (EUL).

Dr. St. John re­it­er­at­ed: “Un­less oth­er­wise spec­i­fied, Mem­ber States should con­tin­ue ad­her­ence to rec­om­men­da­tions for ap­proved vac­cines. This will help to en­sure favourable ben­e­fits to in­di­vid­u­als and com­mu­ni­ties."