Lisbon – Several European countries have mobilised their resources to vaccinate younger children, as the latest variant of the coronavirus spreads across the globe in a new wave of pandemic.

Europe is currently battling to rein in the spread of the highly mutated Omicron variant of the virus, believed to be much more infectious, and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen has warned the new strain could be dominant in Europe by mid-January.

Portugal, one of the countries with the highest COVID-19 vaccination rates worldwide, began inoculating over-fives on Saturday, and France said it was ready to roll out jabs for them from next week.

A number of countries have already opened up their immunisation drives to younger children, even though the EU’s health agency has warned that jabs alone will not be sufficient to stop the variant’s rise.

In Portugal, where 88.9 per cent of the population is vaccinated, more than 60,000 children aged between five and 11 were set to receive their first jab of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine this weekend.

And in France, health minister Olivier Veran said that jabs will start to be administered to children in the same age group from Wednesday.

“If all goes well, we will start vaccination of children on the afternoon of December 22 in specially adapted centres,” he told France Inter radio.

Omicron to be ‘dominant’ in France

French Prime Minister Jean Castex on Friday likened the spread of the Omicron variant in Europe to ‘lightning’, adding it would be the dominant strain in France from the start of 2022.

Castex added that while much remains unknown about the variant ‘it does not seem to be more dangerous than the Delta variant and available data indicate that complete vaccination coverage with the booster dose protects well against severe forms of the disease’.

Nearly 3,000 people are in intensive care with COVID-19 in France as per latest figures.

Meanwhile people will become eligible for booster jabs four months from the date of their second vaccination down from five, Castex added.

And he said the government would announce new measures to tackle non-vaccination from next year. “While we have given a lot of time for those French people who were hesitant and had doubts, in January we will strengthen the incentive for vaccination, because it is not acceptable that the refusal of a few million French people to be vaccinated, puts the life of an entire country at risk,” he said.