Dr Kidong Park, (Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) – The extensive vaccination of
children aged 12 and above helps reduce disease burden and the risk of new
variant emergence, potentially by reducing viral transmission, ,
WHO Representative in Vietnam, said in an interview with Vietnam News Agency
reporters.
Park spoke highly of the Vietnamese Ministry of Health’s vaccination scheme,
saying that “the Ministry of Health emphasises the importance of accelerating
vaccination for adults as first priority, especially the health workers, older
people, and those with co-morbidities.”
This is in line with WHO recommendations, he stressed.
Regarding the ministry officially allowing
vaccinations in children aged 12-17, with those aged 16-17 to get the shots
first, the WHO official said 12 years old and
above will reduce disease burden and the risk of new variant emergence,
potentially by reducing viral transmission.
According to Park, WHO has granted Emergency Use Listing
(EUL) to Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine COVID-19 vaccine for use in adolescents
(children above the age of 12).
WHO is urging manufacturers who have completed data on their
vaccines to submit the data to WHO for review to increase vaccine availability
for children and adolescents, he said.
As adolescents and children with comorbidities are also at
significantly higher risk of serious COVID-19 disease, they may be offered
vaccination, he said, while calling on everybody to continue to implement the
5K and the other public health interventions.
In addition, children should be guided to inform parents or
caregivers if he/she feels sick. Individual prevention measures of adults are
also important in protecting children, preventing the transmission of the virus
from family members, he added.
Studies are ongoing regarding the frequency and risk of
COVID-19 in children and adolescents, he went on.
“We know that children and adolescents of all
ages can become infected and transmit the virus; however, developing evidence
suggests that younger children may be less susceptible and children, in
general, are less likely to suffer from severe disease and death following
COVID-19 infection compared with other age groups.
“The recently released Global
Vaccination Strategy has included adolescents (children above the age of 12) as
a key group in achieving 70 percent vaccination coverage. Therefore, once all
high risk groups are fully vaccinated, vaccination of adolescents (those ages
12 and above) can be done to reduce disease burden and the risk of new variant
emergence,” Park affirmed./.
Source: VietnamPlus
