She expresses her deep concern Hellenic Federation of Freelance Pediatricians due to low vaccination rates against it COVID-19 among children, as well as official recommendations for pediatric vaccination against the disease FROMovoid-19 in our country who do not encourage the vaccination of children.

Although most children have a mild disease, they are still more likely to develop severe disease and require hospitalization, as well as other serious complications of the disease, such as multiple organ inflammatory syndrome MIS-C (more 130 children). in our country) and long-FROMovoidnotes the Federation and recalls the call of the International Union of Epidemiologists for the universal vaccination of the child population.

The Hellenic Federation of Visiting Pediatricians believes that, on an individual level, vaccination against Sars-Cov2 benefits children because:

1. Vaccinated children are less likely to contract Covid-19.

2. If they become infected, they are less likely to end up in the hospital, in the intensive care unit, or, less commonly, die or develop MIS-C.

3. Vaccination provides protection against complications associated with Covid-19 and can reduce the disproportionate impact on children’s health already caused by long-term control measures.

4. Even children who have had a disease are benefiting, as we now know that hybrid immunity (from the disease and the vaccine) is superior to the immunity provided by either the disease or the vaccine alone.

From a public health point of view, the more children that are vaccinated, the less the virus will circulate and therefore the better the disease will be controlled, emphasizes the Hellenic Federation of Independent Pediatricians.

About 5-11 years old

An updated vaccine for these ages has recently been approved by the EMA. Therefore, it is important that children who were vaccinated in the previous season, i.e. 6-12 months ago, or it has been a long time since they were last sick, were protected by this vaccine. There is already extensive experience with booster vaccination at this age with millions of doses administered worldwide with a very good safety profile and high efficacy.

A recent study showed that a booster dose, even with an older vaccine, increased the effectiveness against infection with the Omicron variant to levels higher than those achieved after 2 doses, while there was no evidence of a decrease in effectiveness even 3 months after the booster dose. . “Moreover, we believe that no one can deny parents who want to vaccinate their children with an updated vaccine to protect them this right,” notes the Greek Federation of Independent Pediatricians.

Approximately 6 months to 5 years of age

This age group during the Omicron variant is characterized by high rates of hospitalization. According to the data presented at the two-day meeting of the Hellenic Society of Childhood Infections in Thessaloniki, 7627 children were hospitalized in our country until the end of November 2022, of which 75 needed to be hospitalized in the intensive care unit, and 11, unfortunately, finished.

These figures are significantly higher than for other infectious diseases for which the entire pediatric population is universally vaccinated, and we believe that as long as a safe and effective vaccine exists, children should be eligible for universal vaccination and booster doses.

Source: APE/MEB