Covid-19 misinformation slows child vaccinations

Misinformation about the covid-19  vaccine in children between 5 and 11 years, is hindering reaching the goal of vaccinating more than half a million children in the country.

Data from the  Ministry  of Health shows that vaccination is slow and February 13, only 137,232 pediatric doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine had been applied, of the 372,000 doses that have arrived in the country – that is, 36.8%.

Javier Nieto, president of the Panamanian Society of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, attributed the situation to factors such as the fear of parents regarding the safety of the vaccine, caused by misinformation, and the perception that Covid-19 is not as aggressive in children as in adults and added that there are individuals who, with the desire to gain prominence,  who have made slanderous arguments against the vaccines available in the country, alleging serious adverse events, including deaths.

Misinformation is mainly spread via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and WhatsApp, and the spread intensified when Minsa began vaccinating children on  January 7.

He argued that the health authority must exercise its leading role, sanctioning those who promote slanderous arguments with the aim of generating fear and, in turn, gaining popularity or prominence at the expense of an unprecedented health situation.

Meanwhile, the infectologist, pediatrician,  Xavier Sáez-Llorens indicated that another factor that causes vaccination to be slow is the legitimate perception that Covid-19 is not as aggressive in children as it is in adults.

He pointed out, the pediatricians who work in the hospitals are witnesses that the infection is not so benign, and that of the thousands of hospitalized they have had in the two years of the pandemic, a third of those admitted have been managed. in intensive care units (ICU) and that at least 1% of these children die from Covid-19

For Sáez-Llorens, it is important that parents become aware of the need to vaccinate their children, especially now that the beginning of the school year is approaching.

He noted that more than 30 million children have been vaccinated with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia,  and Panama, demonstrating an excellent safety profile.

Children’s Hospital
In Panama, the fourth wave of the pandemic, driven by the variant  Ómicron, generated an increase in cases detected in the Children’s Hospital in January of this year.

There was an exponential increase in cases from week one (January 2 to 8); with a maximum incidence peak in week three (January 16 to 22), when 155 cases were registered; and with a downward trend in week four (January 23 to 29), with 132 infections.

Of those 483 cases detected at the Children’s Hospital, 90 required hospitalization (18%), and 8 of the patients were admitted to intensive care units three deaths of children from Covid-19 were recorded in January, a figure similar to that reported in the 12 months of last year.