Jordan to vaccinate children aged 12 years and older against COVID-19

Students, wearing protective masks, wait in line on the first day of school in the Jordanian capital Amman amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, on 1 September 2020. [KHALIL MAZRAAWI/AFP via Getty Images]

Jordan will start vaccinating children aged 12 years and older against COVID-19 from Sunday, Reuters reported the state news agency as saying on Saturday.

Children can be given the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine with the approval of a guardian with no prior appointment necessary, the agency quoted the health ministry as saying.

The decision comes as Jordan lifted most restrictions at the start of July, reopening gyms, pools and night clubs at hotels after cases dropped from a peak in March when several thousands of new cases were recorded daily.

WHO: Risk of ‘catastrophic’ coronavirus surge in Middle East

Total active cases reached 7,489 on Friday with 331 new cases and four deaths.

Since the start of the pandemic, Jordan has recorded a total of 763,437 cases and 9,933 deaths.

Several other countries in the region are vaccinating children, including Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Read: Tunisia reports highest daily deaths from COVID-19 – 317 deaths

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.