Children between 5 and 12 years old will receive an invitation this week to be vaccinated against corona. Their parents decide whether they will make an appointment and a survey by the RIVM shows that half there will certainly or probably do so, but the rest are in doubt or do not want to. Key questions are: is it safe and how useful is it?
Pediatrician and immunologist Emmeline Buddingh of the Willem-Alexander Children’s Hospital in Leiden summarizes the facts in podcast De Dag. She thinks it is especially important that parents are well informed about both what it means to be vaccinated and about what can happen if a child gets corona. As far as she is concerned, the vaccination is mainly sensible for the safety of the child itself, more than that child vaccinations could help to prevent the rapid spread of the virus.
Buddingh is the lead investigator of a nationwide study to better understand MIS-C. MIS-C is a serious inflammatory reaction that children can have a few weeks after their corona infection. In many cases, this disease ends in the intensive care unit.
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