The Ethical Discussion About Vaccinating Teens: ‘How Do I Tell My Kids?’

Finally, this advice also involves an international moral dilemma, namely the vaccination inequality in the world. “Should we start vaccinating the youngest age groups, for whom the risks of serious outcomes from the virus are much lower, if a large part of the vulnerable groups in the rest of the world have not yet received anything?”, says field epidemiologist and microbiologist Amrish Baidjoe.

What are the advantages?

According to the Council, vaccinated young people will hardly become seriously ill if infected. This applies to the prevention of long-term complaints as well as hospital admissions. The report also makes clear that the latter rarely occurs: between September 1, 2020 and May 23, 2021, according to official statistics, 101 corona patients aged 13 to 17 years were admitted in the Netherlands.

Vaccinating teenagers also helps to limit the impact of a new wave of infection with, for example, the more contagious delta variant. Finally, there are secondary benefits for children, such as fewer schools having to close or not being able to exercise due to an outbreak.

What are the disadvantages?

As in adults, the most common side effects for adolescents are injection site pain, fatigue and headache, muscle aches and chills. Most side effects are not serious and disappear after a few days, the council writes.

Internationally, there are also very rare reports of inflammation of the heart muscle, or of the pericardium, after teenagers were injected with BioNTech/Pfizer. According to analyses, there are about 66.7 reports per million vaccinations. The EMA investigates these reports; it is not clear whether the vaccination caused this condition.

“In most cases it was relatively mild and such inflammation went away on its own, or with anti-inflammatories,” says professor of immunology Marjolein van Egmond of Amsterdam UMC. She says the chance that side effects will only become apparent in the long term is extremely unlikely. “Until now, there has never been a vaccine that has not led to side effects until years later.”

Which countries are already doing it?

The Netherlands is not the first country where teenagers are encouraged to be vaccinated with BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine. In North America, this advice already applies in the United States and Canada.

In Europe, Germany and Poland also vaccinate people over the age of 12 who fall outside the risk groups. France, Spain and Romania also plan to offer the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine to all adolescents.

The United Kingdom has not yet made a recommendation. And in other European countries such as Sweden and Estonia, a corona jab for teenagers is only recommended if they are at increased risk of a serious covid infection. That is currently also the situation in the Netherlands.

Tomorrow it will become clear whether the outgoing Minister of Health De Jonge will adopt the advice. This is usually the case.

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