The president of the Pharmacological Society of Chile considered it pertinent to start vaccination with Sinovac to children, girls and adolescents from the age of six and urged families to actively collaborate with the pharmacovigilance of this segment.

During this morning of Monday, September 6, the Institute of Public Health (ISP) approved vaccination with Sinovac for children from 6 years of age onwards. This after a meeting that the government body held with professionals representing the Chilean Society of Pediatrics (Sochipe), the Chilean Society of Infectology (Sochinf), the Pharmacological Society of Chile (Sofarchi), together with members of the Covid-19 Advisory Council.

The instance addressed the request made by the National Supply Center (Cenabast) last Thursday to expand the age range of the inoculation program to the ISP, attaching background information on the results of a phase I and II clinical study conducted in China, which had about 500 participants belonging to that age range, in addition to other information on the use of the vaccine.

Like this, experts in the field raised two motions; to approve vaccination for minors from six years of age and another, to approve inoculation from the age of twelve, which was settled by a vote of five to two, from which Patricia Carmona was subtracted, head of the Subdepartment of Authorization and Sanitary Registration, noting that more background needs to be gathered to establish a safety profile in children aged 3 to 17 years.

For the purpose of developing an ideal process, the president the ISP, Heriberto García Escorza called on the mothers of minors to collaborate with pharmacovigilance.

"The approval of the six years will obviously be linked in a very relevant way to interesting and powerful campaigns that we have to do of pharmacovigilance where we need the support of you father., you mother, that they should in the case of seeing any situation that merits medical attention, immediately take your child to the nearest medical center and motivate health professionals to report the adverse reaction in order to follow up on the respective issues.", said.

For the bulk of specialists, the vaccination of children is explained by the fact that the control of the pandemic will depend on the immunization coverage that can be achieved and despite the fact that children mostly have mild cases of Covid-19, may involve a dangerous reservoir for family members who qualify as high-risk for the virus.

In this sense, the Dra. Leonor Jofré of the Chilean Society of Pediatrics explained that "children can excrete the virus and can infect people at risk, to their parents, to their teachers or to other children and as the disease is often asymptomatic we can not offer other measures than those we are offering such as the use of a mask, frequent hand hygiene and social distancing and obviously if there are changes in the strain, children are probably going to be the ones who are going to reinforce reinfection in the community.".

On the other hand, the Dra. Catterina Ferreccio of the Covid-19 Advisory Council explained that people who maintain two to three years of difference between themselves have similar conditions in terms of the reception of the virus and the behavior related to immunization. For this reason, he proposed to develop a progressive and staggered application of the vaccine..

"To be able to apply this with an excellent pharmaco-epidemiological review and also to go down in age progressively to review in our community the good response in terms of safety and eventually make subgroups of immunogenicity studies", said.

On the other hand, in conversation with our media Dr. Juan Pablo Torres, pediatrician, infectologist and director of Innovation of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Chile positively valued the measure, noting that, despite the fact that more than half manifest themselves as asymptomatic against the virus, children may have acute cases of Covid. "It is a very good foot to continue having a global control of the pandemic", Mentioned.

"The 1,7 percent ending up in hospitalization or of children infected with Covid, el 0,1 percent may have multisystem inflammatory syndrome which while super rare, by definition it is a serious picture. In 60 to 80 percent of these cases, children need admission not only to a hospital but to an intermediate or intensive care unit to manage their condition.", Explained, adding that the high number of children with obesity is also a condition that represents a risk factor that can cause more serious cases of Covid.

Regarding a possible interference of co-administration that could cause the inoculation of Sinovac compared to the rest of the vaccines that are provided to this segment, such as triviral and human papillomavirus vaccines, the pediatrician noted that the likely, is that a difference of 14 days is scheduled between each dose.

"It's a factor that has to be considered so surely the placement will be spaced when it is done in CoronaVac children for a few weeks of the other vaccines to ensure that there is no interference between one vaccine and another., but that measure can be taken and in general it is not a problem", said.

The infectologist noticed the post-inoculation follow-up period to continue maintaining and feeding the data on the safety of the vaccines. "The pharmacovigilance that is done with laboratories, the reports of the Esavi (Events Allegedly Attributable to Vaccination and Immunization) and after the review that the ISP does it is something critical and here in the children it must be maintained in a super rigorous way because that is delivering information and any alert flag that could appear, is detected and that is why in the vaccination processes in general so much safety is protected", Explained.

The also president of the Pharmacological Society of Chile emphasized the relevance of immunization of this group of minors, to the extent that the pandemic has hit the collaterals that have affected their way of life.

"Your relationship with life, with their peers(…)the lack of attendance at classes or school activities implies a cognitive damage not only in academics but also for their physical and mental health that has been tremendous, probably much more relevant than the impact of the infection itself and also in some way, being able to advance in vaccination itself also means that a concrete measure is taken so that its protection is improved., not only in the infection of the virus but of the global functioning of our society so that they can resume those activities that end up being decisive and protective for children ", Observed.

With the approval of the ISP to the age extension of the vaccine with Sinovac, the Ministry of Health must issue a final resolution with which the immunization of children will begin to be applied, girls and adolescents from 6 years of age. In both, the Undersecretary of Public Health, Paula Daza, reported in the report of the balance of the Minsal that the vaccines will be administered in the educational establishments and that meetings will be held for the purpose of organizing this logistics.

"For children over 12 years of age, it was already contemplated that they continue to go to the clinics.. Children under 12 years of age will be vaccinated in schools, but micro-planning is a job that we must do with the health seremis and primary care that we are going to schedule meetings with them to be able to start with this vaccination process during the month of September in schools", said.

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