Vaccination for children skates.
Only 8.2% of 11-12 year olds have received at least one dose, and 2.8% of 5-9 year olds as of February 3.
Read also“I don’t want to hurt mom or dad”: vaccination, a heavy choice for children
Seven weeks after the start of this vaccination campaign, what are the pharmacological surveillance networks saying about the risks of vaccination in children?
In France, according to the latest report presented by the National Medicines Safety Agency, 244,000 doses were administered to children aged 5 to 11, from December 20 to January 27, 2022. “
In total, 44 cases of adverse effects of which two serious cases with favorable evolution were reported after vaccination
”, can we read in the report.
It should be noted that a serious adverse effect, in French pharmacovigilance based on international nomenclature, is not exclusively an effect which induces sequelae, hospitalization or death.
"
The serious adverse effect is the one that attracts the doctor's attention and requires therapeutic care,
” summarizes Mathieu Molimard for Le
Figaro
, head of the medical pharmacology department at the Bordeaux University Hospital.
The undesirable effect leading to work stoppage can, for example, be described as serious.
"
Of these 44 notifications, all the cases are regressive
," explains the pharmacologist.
"
We basically have vomiting, a few skin reactions - which we're not sure are related - and a case of myocarditis probably not related to the vaccine since the person in question had a viral infection next to it
".
French data confirmed elsewhere
These reassuring figures are confirmed by American epidemiological data.
In the United States, out of 8.7 million children vaccinated between November 3 and December 19, 11 cases of myocarditis (cured or in the process of healing) were declared, 12 cases of epileptic seizures and 2 deaths.
“
The two deaths in question concern children who already had serious pathologies and who were vaccinated
”, specifies Mathieu Molimard.
Today, the vaccine therefore displays fewer reports of serious adverse effects for children than for adults.
Read alsoIn Israel, does the record of deaths linked to Covid-19 demonstrate the failure of vaccines?
In December, the High Authority for Health had authorized the vaccination of children over 5 years of age based mainly on pharmacovigilance data available at the time in other countries.
The organization had studied data on more than 10 million children under the age of 14 vaccinated worldwide.
These data were, according to her, "
still limited but reassuring in the short term
", with "
around thirty serious adverse events
" including 3 neurological accidents such as stroke, 2 myocarditis, 1 anaphylactic reaction, 1 cardiorespiratory arrest and 1 death.
“
These data also concern children with comorbidities
”, also specified Lise Alter, and the death was in particular “s
occurred in very specific circumstances
”
,
in a child “ suffering
from very serious illnesses
”.
The vaccine, a minor form of the disease
“
The vaccine is a minor form of the disease
,” recalls Mathieu Molimard.
“
It corresponds to the injection of 3600 bases of mRNA which does not replicate and disappears in a few hours, coding for a single and unique protein
”.
Conversely, the natural virus corresponds to the injection of 30,000 bases of mRNA making it possible to produce a whole virus which will reproduce and infect all the cells of the body in an uncontrolled manner.
The main risk for a child with Covid is to develop PIMS, a pediatric inflammatory syndrome.
This affects one in 4,000 infected children.
A rare risk, but even greater than the even rarer adverse effects of vaccination, which has the advantage in children of reducing the risk of going to intensive care by 98%.
"
In US real-life data, children vaccinated with the mRNA vaccine are 100 times less likely to have PIMS than those who are not vaccinated
," says the pharmacologist.
The very low rate of vaccination of children in France compared to other countries and the fear linked to adverse effects may therefore seem surprising.
“
It is partly the responsibility of the French Society of Pediatrics which implied that the risk/benefit ratio was not interesting for children in good health
”, comments a pharmacologist with Le
Figaro
.
Christèle Gras-Le Guen, president of the French society of pediatrics contests.
"
On the contrary, we published an argument on December 23, 2021
(the day after the launch of the campaign, editor's note)
which recommends this vaccination
", she annoys.
"
We only said in November that vaccination without safety data seemed complicated to us at that precise moment
, ”defends the Nantes pediatrician.
Read also“Children are the first victims of overexposure to screens”
The French Society of Pediatrics is preparing to republish a press release encouraging children to be vaccinated.
“
As since the start of the pandemic, the situation is evolving and we adapt as scientific knowledge arrives, we do not have a crystal ball
”.
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