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Corona vaccination for children: Experts say what speaks for it - and what against it

2021-12-20T07:12:27.629Z


Corona vaccination for children: Experts say what speaks for it - and what against it Created: 12/20/2021, 8:00 AM From: Jennifer Köllen What is the use of giving the current vaccine to a healthy child? Should Parents Wait For The Omicron Vaccine? That's what experts say. Berlin - The corona vaccinations for five to eleven year olds have started in Germany. But some parents are still unsettled


Corona vaccination for children: Experts say what speaks for it - and what against it

Created: 12/20/2021, 8:00 AM

From: Jennifer Köllen

What is the use of giving the current vaccine to a healthy child?

Should Parents Wait For The Omicron Vaccine?

That's what experts say.

Berlin - The corona vaccinations for five to eleven year olds have started in Germany.

But some parents are still unsettled, asking themselves: Why should I have my child vaccinated if it won't have a difficult course anyway?

How well are the vaccines really tested?

And how long will the vaccine even protect?

Another argument in favor of waiting: Vaccine manufacturers are currently working on an adapted vaccine to go with the Omikron variant.

Wouldn't it be better to wait until this vaccine is available?

Corona vaccination for children: Experts say what speaks for it - and what against it

So how useful is vaccination with the previous vaccine in a healthy child?

There are actually many arguments in favor of it:

First: It is not true that children can never get seriously ill with Corona. The probability of having a severe course is much lower in children than in adults - but there are also severe courses in children. Very rarely, but also in healthy ones. In the USA, more than 700 children have died of Covid-19, reports the “Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland”. This means that the infection is one of the ten most common causes of death there. Although it must be said that children there also have poorer health care and are therefore only treated later. In addition, more children are overweight in the United States than in Germany. For the reasons too, the situation in Germany is far less dramatic: The RKI reported in its weekly report from 2.December 2021 of a total of 35 deaths among under 20-year-olds. Some of them had significant previous illnesses. And that means: Parents should always have children with previous illnesses such as heart defects vaccinated against Corona!

Second: fear of heart muscle inflammation after a corona vaccination?

These are practically unfounded.

In the United States, almost five million five to eleven year olds have now been vaccinated - and not a single myocarditis has been observed.

Experts suspect that the dreaded myocarditis, seen in young men after mRNA vaccination, occurs in only 1 in 16,000.

From mid-December, children from the age of five could be vaccinated against Corona (symbol image) © Jan Woitas / dpa

Third: It is still unclear what medium-term and later consequences a corona infection can have for children, as the "WDR" reports. The virologist Christian Drosten told the Swiss online magazine “Republik” that around 4.5 percent of children infected with corona, even with a mild course, would still have symptoms such as loss of taste, loss of smell or permanent fatigue after a month. Drosten named the multisystemic inflammation syndrome (PIMS) as a further danger, which, however, occurs extremely rarely. This is a serious illness that can last up to six months - with mostly high fever and inflammatory reactions in many organs that occur weeks after the acute corona infection. "From the parents' perspective, my child would be vaccinated. Clear case. I don't want this risk, ”said the virologist Drosten.

Other experts are divided.

An overview:

Corona vaccination for children: that's what an infectiologist says

- Infectiologist

: The specialist in microbiology, virology and infection epidemiology Jana Schroeder (Mathias-Spital Foundation, Rheine) advises against speculating on the potential availability of an adapted vaccine in a few months.

Germany still has a problem with the Delta variant.

“The vaccination works much better against them than against Omikron.

At the moment it is also still unclear whether Omikron will completely displace Delta. "

So far there is still no data on how well the vaccination protects against severe disease in the event of an omicron infection: “It is known that the T cells that are important for this also react more stably to variants than antibodies.” That means : Protection against severe courses is also assumed against Omikron.

"We should take the first observations of severe progression in children from South Africa seriously, even if such fears have not come true with earlier variants," said Schroeder.

“An accumulation of severe cases could be a coincidence - or not.

It will take months before there are clear findings from studies.

As rapidly as the virus is spreading, we don't have the time to wait, but should make our decisions based on data from the ongoing infection process. "

Schroeder also refers to data from the United States, where after five million doses of the attenuated vaccine for five to eleven year olds, according to the CDC, no cases of cardiac muscle and pericardial inflammation have been reported.

Corona vaccination for children: What a children's pulmonologist recommends

- Pediatric pulmonologist:

Even if many parents feared that the protection of the vaccines was no longer so good: “The vaccines protect very well against the still dominant Delta variant and also offer a certain protection against Omikron. In any case, that's better than having no protection, ”says Senior Physician Folke Brinkmann from the Bochum University Children's Hospital. She advises vaccination rather than infection - and also cites a benefit for the everyday life of children: Vaccinated persons, for example, do not have to be in quarantine.

"How infectious the new Omikron variant is in the end and how severely it affects children is currently still unclear." Year olds, says Brinkmann. In spite of the overall lower burden of disease, children who have not been previously ill would also be treated on the ward for Covid-19 or the PIMS inflammatory syndrome. "It catches some individuals hard." Some children in this age group also have to struggle with long-term effects such as low resilience and palpitations. Such diseases as a result of the infection are also known from other viruses and, from Brinkmann's point of view, should be taken seriously, even if the incidence in children has not yet been reliably quantified.

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Brinkmann assumes that research results from the USA and Israel regarding the vaccination of children who have not been previously ill will be available shortly.

This will then also have an impact on any updated Stiko recommendation.

Corona vaccination for children: this is recommended by the Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko)

Vaccination Commission:

"Ultimately, Omikron shouldn't be a criterion for parents in the vaccination decision, as there are still too many uncertainties associated with it," said Stiko boss Thomas Mertens last week of the dpa.

Even the first reports from South Africa about severe courses in children are not yet so reliable.

It takes more time and well-designed studies for the assessment.

Stiko member and pediatrician Martin Terhardt said on Monday in the ARD-Mittagsmagazin: “If parents want to protect their child, then it certainly makes sense to vaccinate now and not to wait for a new variant of the vaccine. Because it is only announced for March and we do not know whether it will be approved for children immediately. In this respect, I believe that waiting for this reason is not an idea. "

The use of the lower-dose vaccine for five to eleven year olds in Germany should begin this week. Because of the strongly mutated Omicron variant, which is increasingly causing infections in several countries, vaccine manufacturers have announced that they will be working on adapted vaccines. So far, however, it is not yet certain whether these will actually be necessary. Biontech had also announced that a new vaccine would not be immediately available in large quantities if production were to start up in March.

According to experts, adults should take advantage of the booster vaccination because of their higher corona risk.

This would raise the antibody level in the blood again.

This is also important for protection against omicron.

(With material from dpa)

* merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.

This article only contains general information on the respective health topic and is therefore not intended for self-diagnosis, treatment or medication.

In no way does it replace a visit to the doctor.

Unfortunately, our editors are not allowed to answer individual questions about clinical pictures.

Source: merkur

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