The vaccination campaign for children between 5 and 11 years old may begin in Spain on December 15. The Public Health Commission approved this Tuesday the immunization of children under 12 years of age after the Pfizer vaccine for this population was validated by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and received the endorsement of the Vaccine Report, the group of technicians that advises the Spanish health authorities.
The campaign will begin with the arrival of the first vials, scheduled for December 13: from there they will be distributed among the communities, which will be able to begin the process on the 15th. Health expects to receive 3.2 million vaccines between this month and January , which would be enough to inject the first dose to practically all children between 5 and 11 years (3.3 million). The second dose will be given eight weeks later.
The Ministry of Health has communicated in a note that the commission has approved the vaccination of these age cohorts to reduce the burden of disease in this group and its transmission in the family environment, in educational centers and in the community. “In this sense, the commission highlights the importance of protecting minors of these ages not only from the disease in its acute facet, but also from possible future conditions and from persistent covid syndrome,” the statement said.
The new strategy recommends vaccinating older children in this area first and those with the most vulnerabilities, according to a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Health. However, it is something flexible whose implementation will depend on the autonomous communities, since a rigid interpretation of this prioritization could lead to inefficiencies and slow down the rate of punctures.
Children under 12 years of age were the only age group for which the vaccination campaign had not yet started. Now only those under five will be left out. It is also the group that accumulates the highest incidence of cases: 412 diagnoses per 100,000 inhabitants, almost double the average for Spain (248) and more than triple that of adolescents (133) or over 80 (125). After children, the next groups with the most detected cases are those between 30 and 50 years old, which coincides with the age of most of the parents of these children.
This is one of the reasons why the directors of public health of the ministry and the autonomies have decided to approve vaccination among children between 5 and 12 years old (for minors of this age there is still no approved drug). Just as the fifth wave spread rapidly among young people, who were not inoculated at the time, this sixth wave especially among children. And, although the vaccine does not completely stop the infections, it does reduce the transmission capacity, so when they receive the full schedule it is foreseeable that the virus will spread more slowly (at the expense of what happens with the omicron variant, apparently most transmissible).
Trials show that, with the variants in circulation, the vaccine formulated by Pfizer (which contains a third of the dose that it takes for adults) reduces the chances of children getting the disease by 91%. And it minimizes the already low chances of hospitalization, admission to the ICU or death to practically zero.
In a context of low transmission, the specialists consulted by this newspaper were not in favor of inoculating children, given their low risk of contracting the most serious covid. But the higher the epidemic curve, the more sense childhood vaccination makes. This was determined, for example, by the group of experts that advises the United States Drug Agency (FDA), which determined that the benefit of vaccinating children is greater than the risks in any scenario, but especially in one of many contagions.
The epidemiologists consulted by this newspaper have been in favor of childhood vaccination. “To protect them, but especially to stop transmission,” underlined Fernando Rodríguez Artalejo, Professor of Public Health at the Autonomous University of Madrid. Experts see it as one of the weapons to continue cornering the coronavirus.
Quique Bassat, epidemiologist and member of the Spanish Society of Pediatrics, points out that without being urgent, childhood vaccination is becoming necessary. “The figures support it. The pediatric group is the one with the highest incidence by far, there are outbreaks in schools, something that had not happened until now. There is no urgency, but we have too many cases and children are contributing to transmission in the country ”, he reflects.
A different debate than adult vaccination
The debate about childhood vaccination, however, is different from that of adults, whose chances of dying from covid are much higher. Serious side effects in children, however rare, can be even more so than those caused by the disease itself. Although clinical trials among children under 12 years did not produce any serious adverse effects, the application among adolescents has caused very sporadic episodes of myocarditis, which in the vast majority of cases have been resolved with conservative intervention and without the need for intensive care. The US experts concluded: “Although the benefits of vaccination depend largely on the incidence of COVID-19, the general analysis predicts that the number of clinically significant infections would clearly exceed the number of cases of excessive myocarditis associated with the vaccine in a wide range of incidence scenarios ”.
Most of the complications of covid in children occur in those who have previous pathologies. For this reason, Federico Martinón, vaccine advisor to the World Health Organization, believes it is a priority that the most vulnerable children are included in the inoculation campaign. This includes children with cancer, immunosuppression, obesity, Down syndrome, or those with severe neurological impairment. With respect to the others, the decision “is complex, and depends on scientific, ethical, political, epidemiological and economic factors.”
“People confuse whether it is good or bad with whether it is a priority or not,” says Martinón. “Well-child vaccination is good, we know that the vaccine works and is safe and effective. And in addition to clinical trials, it has already been administered to more than five million children of that age, without any safety concerns. However, it is not a priority compared to the indication for vaccination of other risk groups. Right now I would prioritize the vaccination of all children with risk factors. In the second instance, that of children living with high-risk adults, to try to generate an additional cord of protection precisely in those who are most vulnerable. And, finally, there would be the vaccination of the other children, which is not a priority, which is not the same as not being good or not having data, ”he says.
The United States is one of the countries that has already started child inoculation, with more than 2.6 million injected doses, 10% of the population between 5 and 11 years of age in the country. After a month, no notable adverse effects have been reported. “We are seeing a good safety profile,” says Bassat. “Myocarditis, which had a lot to do with the dose, will probably be much lower with the pediatric dose,” he says.
China has just started the world’s largest childhood vaccination campaign, which aims to inject 160 million children by the end of the year. In Europe, after the approval of the EMA, countries such as Italy or Germany have already decided to start immunization as soon as doses begin to arrive. In the case of France, as of December 15, children with chronic diseases or other vulnerabilities may begin to be vaccinated. The rest, some six million children, will be able to do so, once the health authorities give their final approval, starting at the end of the month, probably “around December 20,” said the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran. In the United Kingdom it is being studied by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization, which could approve the inoculations this week.
#Spain #approves #childhood #vaccination #start #campaign #children #years #December