(CRHoy.com) Vaccination against COVID-19 is being extended to young people between the ages of 12 and 18 throughout the national territory after a long wait by this population.
Despite this, mothers and fathers of the family have expressed the question of When will COVID-19 vaccination open for children under 12 years of age?
For this reason, CRHoy.com consulted with the director of the National Children’s Hospital Olga Arguedas, who assured that said vaccination It could arrive in early 2022.
Arguedas was clear that at the end of this year, the child population from 5 to 12 years of age would not yet be vaccinated nor would it begin to be immunized, because the National Commission for Vaccination and Epidemiology (CNVE) has not yet given the endorsement to begin such activity.
“Vaccination in people over 5 years old and under 12 years old could start at the beginning of the next year, since for this year it is very difficult for the vaccines to arrive and for the Commission to give the endorsement ”, said Arguedas.
The CNV is the national entity in charge of studying and approving the placement of vaccines at the national level, but it relies mainly on external scientific opinions from world agencies.
For this reason, the pediatrician was clear that the main thing for the vaccine against COVID-19 to begin to be placed in the country in children, must have a drug approval by a strict international agency, such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), United States government agency, or the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
The Ministry of Health, for its part, stated the same thing that Dr. Arguedas raised and added that once the pharmaceutical company has said endorsement, it will present the approval to Health.
At this time, the company Pfizer-BioNTech, has officially pending its application for approval for the emergency use of your COVID-19 vaccine in children ages 5 to 11.
The advisory committee of FDA plans to discuss such approval on October 26 and if the approval is given, the application of the vaccine in children between 5 and 11 years of age is expected weeks after said endorsement.
However, even though the FDA approved the emergency use of the vaccine in children, Costa Rica still does not have the corresponding doses to start with said placement and that is why it is expected that children will be immunized until next year.
Weeks ago, the government reported on the purchase of 1 million doses of the vaccine against COVID-19 for minors; which would add up to a total of 3.5 million Pfizer vaccines which are used in 2022 to vaccinate children and reinforce the elderly and people with risk factors with a third dose.
Advantages of vaccination in children:
Days ago, the epidemiologist Ronald Evans, assured that if the country begins to vaccinate the groups that have been excluded since the beginning of the campaign, the virus could be fought more forcefully, by not having population sources of contagion.
In this way, the main advantage that Evans sees is that it would be more difficult than other pandemic waves hit the country continuously.
Olga Arguedas agrees with the epidemiologist’s statements and added that vaccination in children will be beneficial since they could connect transmission chains and prevent the spread of the virus.
“By vaccinating this group, the chains of contagion would be broken and therefore, the virus would not have the same vitality in the country, “he said.
In this same way, Arguedas concluded that it would also help in eradicate infant deaths and above all and more importantly, it will allow a much safer return to school activities.
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