Yesterday, the Autonomous Communities began the immunization campaign against Covid-19 in the population with ages between 5 and 10 years , a Once the first pediatric doses have been distributed by the Ministry of Health. In this context, the Spanish Association of Primary Care Pediatrics (AEPap) stressed the importance of this vaccination to protect children, especially those with risk factors . Although the pediatric population generally presents less severe conditions than other age groups, there are cases in which it is especially important immunize.
This was explained by Dr. Pedro Gorrotxategi, vice president of AEPap. “ Most children pass the Covid-19 infection without symptoms, or with a cough, runny nose, muscle aches, sore throat, and sometimes a couple of days of fever “. However, “in some cases, they have to go to hospital and a few end up in intensive care.” This wide range of manifestations of infection. “It has generated doubts in some parents, who ask about the advisability or not of vaccinating “, indicated Dr. Gorrotxategi. For the vice president of AEPap, vaccination in this age group is “ important and necessary “.
To illustrate this, Dr. Ángel Hernández-Merino, advisor to the Vaccine Committee of the Spanish Association of Pediatrics (AEP) pointed to data from the National Epidemiological Surveillance Network . “ The cases reported throughout the pandemic have been 380,000 in children under 10 years of age, of which 3,400 have been hospitalized, 185 have been admitted to intensive care units and have died 17 ”, he explained. Therefore, “ the number of complications is very small compared to the figures of the adult population, but, as can be seen, children are not exempt from suffering forms severe Covid-19 ”. For this reason, “ vaccinating boys and girls between the ages of 5 and 11 is beneficial, especially for minors with greater fragility, such as those suffering from neuromuscular, metabolic, cardiorespiratory or oncological ”, stated Dr. Hernández-Merino. This group “until now had not been able to get vaccinated because there was no approved vaccine for them, but now they can benefit from this vaccine “, he stressed.
This table shows the data of the pandemic updated to December 1, where the incidence, hospitalizations , intensive care admissions and mortality according to age groups.
Some Autonomous Communities, such as the Basque Country, offer incidence data for boys and girls of different ages:
Regarding the forecasts of what will happen in the In the next few months, he assured that “ when adolescents between 12 and 18 years of age were vaccinated, the incidence in that age group decreased and now the same is expected to occur among the 5 and the 11 years, because I am n now the most affected population at this time «. In this sense, the AEPap also calls for “ intensify efforts to reach adolescents not yet vaccinated ”.
Likewise, AEPap is aware of the need to bring the vaccine to all countries to combat the viru s. Its president, Dr. Concepción Sánchez Pina, assures that “ in this globalized world, the only way to end the current pandemic is for vaccination to reach the whole world , that all people, especially those at higher risk, can be vaccinated and that, in this way, it is avoided that new variants arise that could reduce the effectiveness of vaccines, which would constitute important steps backwards ”. Thus, together with the recommendation to vaccinate the 5 to 11-year-old group and to try to reach the population over 12 years of age that has not yet been vaccinated , Primary Care pediatricians underline the need to “ extend vaccination to countries with fewer resources, where the number of vaccinated people does not reach at 10% ”.
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