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Mexico endorses the vaccine for minors from the age of five, although the Government has not yet included it in its vaccination plan

2022-04-06T04:02:25.933Z


Cofepris has given authorization to use the Pfizer biological in this population group, however, the authorities have not ruled on the matter.


Minors receive the covid vaccine in Tijuana, Baja California. Omar Martínez (CUARTOSCURO)

Although the Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks (Cofepris) authorized the Pfizer vaccine against covid-19 for children over 5 years of age since last March, the federal Ministry of Health has not yet included these minors in its national strategy of coronavirus vaccination.

The Cofepris portal stipulates that for this segment of the population the dose and composition of the biological will be different from that approved for those over 12 years of age.

Until now, the vaccine is applied to adolescents regardless of their health status from 15 years of age and in children under 12 years of age with pre-existing conditions such as heart, lung, neurological conditions, among others.

The infectologist Alejandro Macias explains that despite the fact that Cofepris is the body in charge of issuing the emerging or definitive authorizations based on its new molecules committee, however, this recommendation is not binding, that is, it does not oblige the Government to have to use the biological.

“In the case of Mexico, a vaccine has to be analyzed by a National Vaccination Council and they analyze its relevance and it is proposed to the corresponding instance, which will also establish whether the cost and benefits are sufficient.

Of course, there is an international tendency for young people and children to be vaccinated once adult vaccination is achieved and, on the other hand, it is evident that we are not going to achieve good group immunity if we do not vaccinate them”, he comments.

Andreu Comas, doctor and academic from the Autonomous University of San Luis Potosí (UASLP), warns that Mexico has a lag of more than seven months in childhood immunization compared to other countries.

"Mexico has not bought more vaccines, right now the vaccines it is applying are those that were left over from last year or those that it has from the Covax mechanism, but today, the protections that have been won to immunize minors, the answer is that they do not there are vaccines”, comments the researcher.

The specialist explains that it was surely the pharmacist, in this case Pfizer, that was in charge of initiating the process before Cofepris to obtain the endorsement for emergency use.

"Cofepris has to meet the deadlines and, at the end of the day, how could it justify that it did not authorize it, it had no reason to deny the vaccine," Comas details.

However, although the authorization was finalized and published on its website, the dissemination was ignored by the health authorities.

From the beginning of the pandemic, the vaccination of minors was a turning point in the strategy of the López Obrador government in the face of the health crisis.

The federal authorities argued that minors were not a population at risk and therefore did not fall within the vaccination priorities.

However, official figures show increases in infections and deaths of children and adolescents at the peak of the pandemic.

To date, Mexico accumulates 96,966 infected minors and 949 deaths, according to statistics.

While in Mexico this segment is still not included in the national vaccination plan, other countries such as Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Peru, Uruguay and the United States are already vaccinating girls and boys, in some of them from 2 years of age .

In the country, governments such as Nuevo León or Coahuila have chosen to make cross-border trips to vaccinate children between 5 and 15 years of age with the Pfizer biological in the United States, from Coahuila alone 38,000 children have been vaccinated in these vaccination caravans.

Groups of parents have emphasized the need to protect minors with the vaccine to achieve herd immunity and prevent deaths or injuries in children and adolescents.

The Mexican Association of Pediatrics, together with other organizations, advocated in writing this Monday for the immunization of children between the ages of 5 and 11, stating that the coronavirus is already the main cause of infant death in the country.

“Serious events allegedly attributable to vaccination in the pediatric population are rare, having a positive balance in terms of risk-benefit to reduce deaths and hospitalizations due to covid,” the statement indicates.

Lawyer Alma Franco, one of the mothers who filed an injunction to get her son immunized, criticizes the opacity with which the information has been handled by the López Obrador government.

For Franco, the Administration's resistance to including this population group in its immunization strategy has an economic background.

“We don't know how our children are going to fare with this virus.

They are minimizing the deaths of minors from covid, I do not know what is happening to our president, ”she comments.

During the conference this Tuesday at the National Palace, the Undersecretary of Health, Hugo López-Gatell, did not give any indication about the minors, but he did celebrate that the country registers 10 consecutive weeks of low infections, as well as the high percentage of immunized adults. : "Vaccination coverage has remained at 90% in national average and in young people, minors, from 14 to 17 years old, coverage is 54%", he declared.

Almost 86 million people have been vaccinated with at least one dose of the biological.

López-Gatell insisted on inviting the general public to participate in the trials of the coronavirus vaccine, Patria, which is being developed by the National Council for Science and Technology (Conacyt).

"For the person who participates in the clinical trial there is a direct benefit in that for a whole year they will be under medical observation, receiving a series of evaluations that are of additional importance to the evaluation of the immunity caused by the vaccines," she said.

For the health authorities, Mexico is a country in green, it is enough to show the map of the Republic and the numbers of infections and deaths go down.

However, for parents of minors, the immunization of their children is an issue still in the pipeline that only requires the will of the Government to get going.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-04-06

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