"Vaccinating children aged 5-11 is not a priority. We have time to decide. We are waiting for clarification." To support this, in an interview with "Corriere della Sera", is Maurizio Bonati, pediatrician-epidemiologist at the Mario Negri institute, expert on the committee of the Aifa drug agency on vaccine surveillance.
"I would recommend waiting, there is no rush - he says - we are not in an extreme emergency phase like a year ago. People were dying of Covid, the hospitals were saturated and you could understand the urgency of having a weapon to counter the virus ".
"Children get mild symptoms if they catch the infection," Bonati continues. "Since 2020, 16 have died, but from other concomitant diseases. The risk is thousands of times lower even taking into account the very rare multisystemic inflammatory syndromes (Mis-c), late expressions of Covid ".
So "we recommend the vaccine, but with due explanations. The American agency FDA approved Pfizer's vaccine for under 12s by examining a study on 2,400 subjects. We don't know much more."
A "yes" to the vaccine for children much more decided by Paolo Rossi, head of the pediatrics department of the Bambino Gesù hospital.
"At the moment, the only supports for the circulation of the pandemic virus, in addition to the no vaxes and the hesitant ones, are the little ones who do not yet have an immunization tool authorized in European countries for their age", he explains in an interview taken by the agencies "In fact, most of the infections concern adults living in families with small children - he continues - If we leave the Sars-CoV-2 free to replicate, the ability to give rise to new variants will increase".
"It is true, young people who catch Covid have mild symptoms - continues Rossi - and yet there are cases of serious illness. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have admitted 45 patients with multisystem inflammatory syndrome (Mis-c) to our center that we did not know at first. This is to say that we ignore the long-term consequences of the disease. "
"Children within the first year of life receive the hexavalent that contains six vaccines - concludes Rossi -: diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B, polio and haemophilus influenzae. Why should we fear the puncture we are now offering to put them safe? The vaccine must be given to all children, with priority for the frail ".
(Unioneonline / vl)