Adriana santagati
03/05/2021 6:02 AM
Clarín.com
Society
Updated 03/05/2021 3:35 PM
While in Argentina the vaccination of older adults, the mutations that Covid-19 is having and the evolution in the development of the pandemic advance, still at a slow pace, raise a question that until now did not seem to be a priority:
when will they be available vaccines for children?
As an age group, minors are those who have been least affected by the
serious complications of the coronavirus
: it is already known and it has been said ad nauseam that this virus hits the older adults the hardest, who are at higher risk of complications and mortality.
But in the northern hemisphere, and even in countries where vaccination has already placed third, such as the United Kingdom (third in the ranking of vaccinated, with more than 30% of its population immunized according to Our World in Data), a increased cases in children and adolescents.
The reasons for the increase in cases in minors that is being seen in Europe are basically two.
And one of them is related, precisely, to vaccination.
Those vaccinated are adults and the virus "collides" with the protection that the vaccine gives them.
So, in a way, he "looks for his way" and in it he finds the youngest, who have not been immunized.
But there is another important factor:
the new variants
.
“They have gained in transmissibility.
Mutations in the spike have given it about
40% more transmissibility
.
In children and adolescents it is where it costs more to cut off contacts and transmission, because due to their habits they tend more to contact and sometimes it is more difficult for them to comply with the protocols.
Older adults have learned to take care of themselves and guard themselves ”, analyzes Angela Gentile, pediatrician and infectologist at Hospital Gutiérrez, who believes that more cases will be seen in younger groups.
Marta Cohen, also a pediatrician and pathologist, agrees with her diagnosis.
This Argentine lives in the United Kingdom, where she has closely followed and shared the progress of the pandemic and its control on the networks.
He explains that in that country pediatric hospitalization increased from 30 cases per week in April 2020 to 100 per week in February.
This increase is linked to multisystemic inflammatory syndrome, a complication of Covid that occurs in children, which is rare but can lead to intensive therapy.
“Children have a healthy vascular system that
reacts so powerfully to
SARS-CoV-2
viral infection
that it produces a large amount of anti-inflammatory substances one to four weeks after Covid, usually asymptomatic.
Patients go into shock, with depression of cardiovascular activity ”, he details.
The pediatrician points out that children also have similar percentages to adults (around 30%) of prolonged Covid, with symptoms that last for several weeks.
The good news is that several of the laboratories that produce the approved vaccines have already started
clinical studies in the pediatric population
.
"Except for drugs specifically developed for children, all drugs are first tested in those over 18 years of age and then they are scaled to other age groups", points out the infectologist María Marta Contrini, a member of the National Immunization Commission and one of the coordinators Cansino Biologics Local Adult Trial.
Note that the design of clinical studies in minors
is the same as in large ones -
randomized, double blind - and that since phase I was already carried out in the elderly, phase II and III are generally done first in the population between 6 and 18 years, then in the youngest children and finally in infants.
Currently, trials in adolescents are already being done with the vaccines from
Moderna, Pfizer and AstraZeneca
.
In the latter case, that of the drug that Argentina bought (and which is already being applied with the Covishield brand, manufactured in India), the University of Oxford announced in mid-February the start of the study with 300 volunteers between 6 and 17 years old in Great Britain.
Regarding Sputnik V, the Russian Direct Investment Fund anticipated to this newspaper that the
pediatric protocol
will be presented in May to the Russian Ministry of Health.
When will there be results from these studies?
By calculating how long it took for the first results from the main Oxford / AstraZeneca trial, Cohen estimates that news about the British vaccine
will not arrive before our spring
.
Gentile also believes that only towards the end of the year could there be answers about messenger RNA vaccines, such as those from Pfizer and Moderna.
In any case, the boys will have to follow the immunization queue, waiting first for the other age groups before it is their turn to put their arm to receive the prick.
ACE
Look also
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Coronavirus: Argentina will receive 1.9 million vaccines from the Covax initiative until May
