Berlin, Sep 21 (IANS): Germany is likely to offer Covid-19 vaccines to children under 12 years of age in early 2022, Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn said.

Spahn said on Monday that he expected authorisation to use the vaccine in this age group to come in the first quarter of next year, reports Xinhua news agency.

"Then we could also protect the younger ones even better," he told the media.

Till date, more than 52.5 million people in Germany have been fully vaccinated against the virus, bringing the country's vaccination rate to 63.1 per cent, according to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases.

Almost 56 million people have received at least one vaccine dose.

Earlier this month, German vaccine maker BioNTech announced plans to soon seek approval to use its jab in children aged five to 11.

It said the vaccine would be the same but the dosage is smaller.

Having declined for six consecutive days, Germany's seven-day Covid incidence rate rose again slightly to 71.0 per 100,000 people on Monday, compared to 70.5 the day before and 81.9 a week ago, according to the RKI.

Meanwhile, the number of daily Covid-19 infections in Germany fell as 3,736 new cases were registered within 24 hours on Monday, 1,775 less than one week ago, the RKI said.

Germany has so far registered 4,157,113 confirmed Covid-19 cases and 93,632 deaths.