Covid Vaccine for Kids: 6 Facts in Favor

The United States and several countries in Europe —such as Germany and Portugal— have already started vaccinating children aged 5 years and over against Covid-19.

In Brazil, Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency) authorized on December 16 the application of the Pfizer vaccine to children aged 5 to 11 years. Now, the immunization of this public, in practice, depends on the Ministry of Health. But minister Marcelo Queiroga said that the matter will only have a definition on January 5th.

Regulatory agencies and experts point out that the benefits of childhood vaccination against Covid outweigh any risks.

Next, learn about six facts in favor of childhood vaccination, according to experts, in addition to the arguments presented by the federal government so far.

1. The vaccine is effective and safe

The vaccine is effective and safe for children, according to researchers, regulatory agencies in several countries (including Anvisa) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

A study of children aged 5 to 11 years who received two doses of Pfizer vaccine showed that they had a neutralizing antibody response at concentrations similar to those seen in adolescents and adults aged 16 to 25 years.

And no serious adverse events associated with vaccination were observed. These data are cited in a joint letter from the Brazilian societies of Pediatrics, Infectology and Immunization, in which doctors say they support childhood vaccination, as the benefits outweigh any risks.

Doctors also point out that, in addition to the results of clinical trials, it is already possible to observe what happens in the United States and other countries that widely vaccinate their children.

“We currently have more than five million doses of this vaccine applied to children aged 5 to 11 years in the United States and other countries, with pharmacovigilance data not revealing adverse events of concern”, highlight pediatricians and infectious diseases.

2. The vaccine is specific for children

When talking about the efficacy and safety of the vaccine for children, it is important to emphasize that it is a product that is specific for this audience.

Pfizer’s vaccine approved in Brazil for children has a different dosage and composition than that which is already being used for those over 12 years of age.

The immunizing agent will have to be applied in two doses of 0.2 ml (equivalent to 10 micrograms, one third of that of adults), with at least 21 days between doses. The infant dose will also have a lower concentration of mRNA (the component of the vaccine that stimulates the immune system’s response).

To facilitate identification by health professionals and those responsible for and caregivers of children, the bottle cap will be different, with an orange color.

3. Covid is a risk to children

While children are generally at lower risk than older adults when they get Covid, they can also fall prey to the disease.

In justifying the need to vaccinate children, the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says that they can develop severe cases of Covid-19 and that they can also have short- and long-term health complications developed from Covid .

The letter from pediatricians in Brazil also reminds us of the risk: “The burden of disease in the Brazilian population of children is relevant, including so far thousands of hospitalizations and hundreds of deaths caused by Covid-19 in the age group in question, in addition to others that have already been demonstrated. consequences of infection in children, such as long Covid and pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome (P-SIM), all of which are potentially serious in this age group”.

In the United States, there were nearly 2 million cases of Covid-19 in children aged 5 to 11 years – and health authorities point out that, “in some situations, the complications of the infection can lead to death”.

Vaccination, according to experts, helps prevent children from becoming seriously ill, even if they contract the disease.

The infectious disease specialist Raquel Stucchi says, in an interview with BBC News Brasil, that the main argument in favor of childhood vaccination is “to prevent Covid from being the disease that kills most children in our country”.

The National Council of Health Secretaries (Conass) released a statement in which it says that no other vaccine-preventable disease killed as many children and adolescents in 2021 as covid.

“It is important to highlight the warning from the World Health Organization (WHO), which points out that the public between 5 and 14 years old is the most affected by the new wave of Covid-19 in Europe and, despite the lower risk compared to other age groups , no other vaccine-preventable disease caused as many deaths in children and adolescents in Brazil in 2021 as Covid-19,” says the statement.

4. Positive effect for education

Immunizing children has positive effects not only on their health, but also on education, says the CDC.

“Vaccinating children ages 5 and older can help keep them in school and safely participate in sports, games and other group activities,” it says.

In Brazil, children aged 6 to 10 are the most affected by school exclusion in the pandemic, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef). Of 5.1 million girls and boys without access to education in November 2020, 41% were between 6 and 10 years of age; 27.8% were between 11 and 14 years old; and 31.2% were between 15 and 17 years old.

The WHO, despite defending that the vaccination of children and adolescents is not urgent (understand below), highlighted that this group has been “disproportionately affected” in the pandemic, with the closing of schools.

“In addition to having their routine affected, minors end up losing in these situations access to services provided by schools, such as meals, face-to-face support for learning, speech therapies and sanitation and hygiene measures”, points out the UN.

5. Collective protection

In addition to immunizing children, childhood vaccinations are important to help protect those around them — including other children who have not yet reached an eligible age, for example.

“Vaccinating children can help protect family members, including siblings who are ineligible for vaccination and family members who may be at greater risk of getting very sick if they become infected,” says the CDC.

Epidemiologist Ethel Maciel points out that vaccinating children is also part of the collective strategy of trying to reduce the circulation of the virus and control the pandemic.

“The more people vaccinated I have —that is, the greater the vaccine coverage—, the more I am able to block the circulation of this virus in the population. In order to achieve high vaccine coverage in Brazil, we need to vaccinate children — they are also part of that of the account,” he told BBC News Brasil.

6. Ômicron accelerates new Covid cases in the world

If the pandemic seemed to have started to get under control due to the advance of vaccination, the omicron variant reinforced the importance of immunization and the reinforcement of preventive measures – and led some countries to accelerate the application of booster doses, for example.

It also impacts the issue of childhood vaccination, according to Maciel. The epidemiologist says that omicron — which is spreading rapidly in many countries — “makes vaccination of this group more important”.

“The greater the transmissibility — the capacity of that variant of the virus to transmit itself to the greatest number of people —, the more we have to increase the coverage of vaccination in the population”, he explains.

“Including children is of such importance, especially when faced with more transmissible variants.”

WHO: Vaccination of children ‘is not urgent’

The WHO said in November that vaccines against Covid-19 that have received authorization from regulatory bodies to be applied to children and adolescents are safe and effective in reducing the impacts of the disease on these groups.

The organization, however, defended that “it is not urgent” to vaccinate this group, stating that “children and adolescents generally have less severe symptoms of Covid-19 compared to adults”.

WHO has been advocating global equity in access to vaccines and has called on countries that have already achieved high vaccine coverage to prioritize dose sharing through the Covax mechanism, before starting to create immunization campaigns in children at low risk of severe disease .

For Maciel, the WHO position reflects the multilateral organization’s need to think globally.

“WHO fulfills its role and is doing very well”, he says. “Thinking globally, we not only need to expand coverage in our country, we need coverage to be expanded in all countries – so we always need to vaccinate the most vulnerable first.”

Stucchi says that “the vaccination of children is important because they also die — but in countries where vaccination has not started or is starting, we have to prioritize groups that proportionally die from the disease — the elderly and people with comorbidities”.

Why has Brazil not started vaccinating children from 5 to 11 years old?

The green light was given by Anvisa on December 16, but Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga said that the decision will be made until January 5th. He stated that Anvisa’s decision “is not enough”.

“I am the main health authority in Brazil and I do not give up exercising my prerogatives,” said the minister.

Thus, although Anvisa has pointed out scientific evidence to approve childhood vaccination, the federal government decided that it will await public consultation and public hearing to make its decision.

This week, Queiroga said that “haste is the enemy of perfection”, when commenting on the vaccination of children. “Parents will have the answer at the right time, without haste.”

For infectologist Raquel Stucchi, “not being in a hurry at this moment is putting our children at risk, it’s letting them live in an unsafe environment”.

“We already have millions of children vaccinated in the world, scientific studies, real-life studies showing the safety and effectiveness of vaccines in this age group. So the rush exists to be able to implement vaccination for our children and protect children, which at the beginning of year we expect that they can have a normalized routine, attending schools”, he justifies.

Epidemiologist Ethel Maciel points out that Anvisa has already made the decision taking into account technical and scientific parameters and says that it is the body that has the conditions to carry out this type of assessment.

She considers the minister’s decision “wrong” and says that this stance “puts in check our own national immunization program, built with great pains.” Stucchi says that putting Anvisa’s decision in public consultation is “an aberration”.