Five days after the green light given by the European Medicines Agency to the vaccination of 5-11 year olds with Pfizer, the High Authority for Health (HAS) prefers to delay.
In an opinion delivered on Tuesday, the authority recommends that the government "expand now" the campaign but only to children aged 5 to 11 at risk of serious form.
Extending this vaccination to all children is not, however, a priority, she said.
The HAS prefers to wait for a series of “stakeholder hearings” and the results of studies in the coming weeks before deciding.
Once the results are known, it will be possible to “assess the relevance” of this new phase, she judges.
More than 360,000 children affected
Concretely, the children whose immunization is recommended are those who present a risk of severe form of the disease and those who live in the entourage of an immunocompromised person not protected by the vaccination.
The authority cites the case of hepatic diseases but also that of heart and respiratory diseases including severe asthma, neurological diseases or even diabetes, malignant hemopathies and trisomy 21.
Finally, the HAS considers it prudent to vaccinate children "carriers of one of the comorbidities previously identified in adults as at risk of developing a serious form of the disease": recent cancer, chronic renal disease or even neurological handicap.
In total, this would concern a little more than 360,000 children in France.
Rare symptoms in the youngest
To date, the incidence is very strong among the youngest, recalls the HAS.
But while children have less severe symptoms than adults, some complications have already been observed.
Certain "inflammatory syndromes" in children "need to be detected early to initiate hospital treatment", underlines the authority.
These serious symptoms remain rare, however: 781 cases have been reported by pediatricians since March 2, 2020. Among them, 318 required a stay in intensive care.
Read also Anti-Covid vaccine for children under 12: what are the next steps in France?
To counter a new wave, the United States, Canada and also Israel have already started vaccinating children under 12.
That is to say as many countries which in due course will also be able to provide full-scale data on the immunization of the youngest.
Until then, the HAS recommends that schools in France strengthen the prevention of transmission in schools by maintaining barrier measures, regular ventilation of classes or even the use of screening tests.
