Five reasons to vaccinate those under 12 years of age
The clinical trials carried out by Pfizer and Moderna, with more than 4,000 volunteers aged 5 to 11, will be made public this month and from then on, the EMA (European Medicines Agency) and its American counterpart will make a decision on the matter.
The school year begins with a thousand plans and headaches in all families and schools. It takes a lot of work beforehand to start up a machine that should run smoothly until June. In the educational field, inprovising is very complicated, because the boys and girls are the ones who bear the consequences if everything is not well organized. And, although parents, teachers and political leaders have done their homework so that everything is well tied in the next nine months, there is an aspect linked to the pandemic that is still in the air. Will the course be able to develop more or less normally due to the successive waves of the covid? Will it be necessary to vaccinate those under 12 years of age even if the schools have not been – according to the competent authorities in the matter – sources of transmission (something that we all feared when it was decided to resume face-to-face teaching)? This last doubt will be resolved “this month”, indicates Carmen Álvarez Domínguez, expert in Immunology and professor of the Master in Infectious Diseases at the International University of La Rioja (UNIR), when Pfizer and Moderna “‘release’ the results of the trials Vaccine clinicians who have performed on more than 4,000 volunteers aged 5 to 11 years. ». The data of about 100 minors are still to be treated, but everything indicates that the conclusions are positive, although it remains to determine the appropriate dose for different age ranges, since a 5-year-old child is not the same as an 11-year-old. “It is a very heretogenic group,” the expert advances. If this is the case, he points out, the European medicine agency (EMA) and the American drug agency will issue their opinion on the vaccination of children under 12 years of age against covid, “so that, if the deadlines are followed, this option would be available for October or November. on the table”.
Why is it so important, according to immunologists, to vaccinate children of this age group, if they rarely have complicated cases of covid?
To reach 90% of the vaccinated population
Because due to the Delta variant, much more contagious than the previous ones, to achieve group immunity, 90% of the population must be vaccinated, not around 70%, as was the case with previous versions of the covid. «And the population group between 5 and 11 years old represents 11% of the population. In other words, without immunizing them, we cannot reach the 90% that is needed … without them we cannot get there », explains Carmen Álvarez.
Leave fewer ‘outlets’ to the virus
How to end the pandemic, when variants do not stop emerging, is the million dollar question. Will new versions emerge? Surely, because viruses also want to survive and, for this they combine with each other, ‘interbreed’ and thus, by mutating, their subsistence is guaranteed. “That is why it is important that there is the least amount of virus swarming around and that is achieved with high vaccination rates,” adds Álvarez. If there are fewer viruses in the environment, there is less chance that they will interact, ‘mix’ and transform into new strains. I mean, you have to make it difficult for them.
Minors with sequelae
Many parents, knowing that children are usually asymptomatic or that they overcome the virus with very mild symptoms, wonder if it is necessary to vaccinate them. After all, they are not in much danger. Something that is not entirely true. “Some, few, have a hard time and will even drag sequelae for life, like adults: respiratory or cardiovascular problems, persistent fatigue,” the immunologist lists. “And if this already hurts to see it in adults, in children …”, he adds.
Cross immunity is not a panacea
Until recently it was believed that children, being recently vaccinated against viruses that have aspects in common with covid, benefited from it and that is why they were not so sensitive to the virus. It is what is called cross immunity: that vaccines for other diseases protect in some way against others, in this case, the covid. “It seems that there is this cross-immunity, which has some benefits, but it is not infallible. At least, not like the one that offers an ‘à la carte’ vaccine against covid, “he says.
The little ones are transmitters to people at risk
Although the youngest do not usually suffer the worst consequences of covid, they can infect vulnerable people: their elders, especially their grandparents, and other children who are at risk, “there are, let’s not forget.” “I have seen cases of vaccinated grandparents, already with the double pattern, who have been infected by contact with children in their environment … and have died,” he laments. And that is very hard to bear in a family, so let’s be very careful.
