Covid-19 vaccination for children aged 5 to 11: Protecting the future of the country

Vaccinating children against Covid-19 is protecting the future of the country. Photo: Document

449,726 children aged 5-11 will be vaccinated

Recently, the People's Committee of Nghe An province issued Plan No. 218/KH-UBND to implement the Vaccination Campaign.Covid-19 vaccinefor children aged 5 to 11 in the area in 2022. Nghe An province sets the goal: In 2022, the whole province will complete vaccination for children aged 5 to 11 to ensure community immunity coverage, contributing to the safe opening of schools. Specifically, over 85% of children aged 5 to 11 in the locality will be fully vaccinated with 2 doses of Covid-19 vaccine.

Covid-19 vaccination for children from 5 to 11 years old must ensure the following principles: There must be unified, close and synchronous direction from Party Committees, authorities, and Steering Committees for epidemic prevention at all levels; associated with the responsibility of leaders; creating high consensus among vaccinated subjects and people in the area; mobilizing maximum medical units in the area to organize and ensure safety in vaccination; having consensus/agreement from families and guardians for children from 5 to 11 years old to participate in vaccination...

According to the plan, the vaccination subjects are children from 5 to 11 years old (children who have reached their 5th birthday but not yet reached their 12th birthday). The expected number of vaccination subjects in the whole province is 449,726 children. The time to start vaccinating children from 5 to 11 years old against Covid-19 is expected to be from April 2022. The scope of implementation is on a province-wide scale. The vaccination sites are at qualified vaccination facilities in the area, including: Hospitals, Medical Centers, Health Stations of communes, wards, towns, schools...

In the investigation, listing and registration of subjects, the People's Committee of Nghe An province requested the Steering Committee for Epidemic Prevention of localities to direct the Department of Education and Training to investigate and list all children residing in the area (permanent and temporary residents) by class at schools; direct wards, communes and towns to investigate and list all children residing in the community (for children who do not go to school) divided into 2 groups to develop an implementation plan.

Nghe An has 449,726 children aged 5 to 11. Photo by Thanh Chung

Nghe An Provincial People's Committee assigns specific responsibilities to departments and branches. For the Department of Health: Proactively allocate vaccines to districts immediately after receiving them from the Ministry of Health; provide professional guidance on organizing vaccination points and inspecting and supervising the organization of vaccination campaigns; direct the Center for Disease Control, Medical Centers of districts/towns/cities and hospitals to organize implementation;... mobilize human resources in the industry, human resources from Vinh Medical University and private medical units to participate in supporting vaccination points as requested by districts, cities and towns; Direct and arrange mobile emergency teams to participate in being ready to organize emergency aid and emergency transportation; direct hospitals to be ready to receive emergency aid and treat adverse events after vaccination.

The Department of Education and Training directs the Department of Education and Training of districts/towns/cities and schools to closely coordinate with the local health sector in developing plans and implementing the Covid-19 vaccination campaign for children aged 5 to 11 years old at schools and levels; coordinate with the health sector in propagating the meaning and benefits of the Covid-19 vaccination campaign; notify parents or guardians about the Covid-19 vaccination campaign implementation plan, the type of vaccine children are vaccinated with, vaccination location, vaccination time and instructions on monitoring post-vaccination reactions for coordination.

The People's Committee of the district/town/city develops a plan to implement the Covid-19 vaccination campaign for children aged 5 to 11 in 2022 in the locality; proactively receives vaccines and organizes the vaccination of all allocated vaccines to ensure safety and on schedule; directs communes/wards/towns to conduct statistical surveys to make a comprehensive list of all subjects aged 5 to 11 in the area according to administrative boundaries and places of residence and prepare for vaccination campaigns according to the direction of the province; assigns teachers to participate in entering information of vaccination subjects into the management software; regularly inspects and monitors vaccination activities; arranges funding for implementing vaccination campaigns in the area.

Actively vaccinate children to protect them from Covid-19 epidemic

Discussing the Covid-19 vaccination for children from 5 to 11 years old, Dr. Nguyen Trong Di - Deputy Head of the Department of Infectious Disease Control, Nghe An Center for Disease Control said: According to the approval of the Ministry of Health, there are 2 types of Covid-19 vaccines for children from 5 to 11 years old, which are Comirnaty vaccine (Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine) and Spikevax vaccine (Moderna Covid-19 vaccine). For Pfizer vaccine, the injection dose is 0.2 ml/dose, each vial contains 10 doses. For Moderna vaccine, the injection dose is 0.25 ml/dose, this vaccine is injected from 6 to under 12 years old. The injection interval between the first and second injections is 4 weeks.

According to Dr. Nguyen Trong Di, the Covid-19 vaccine given to children is guaranteed to be safe and effective. Photo: Thanh Chung

These vaccines, after being imported to Vietnam, will be stored at the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, at a storage temperature of -90 degrees Celsius to -60 degrees Celsius. The provinces will then return to the central government to receive the number of vaccines according to the allocation of the National Expanded Immunization Program; thaw, transport to the provinces, and store at a temperature of +2 degrees Celsius to +8 degrees Celsius. The transportation, storage, and vaccination time of the Pfizer vaccine for children aged 5 to 11 years old is no more than 10 weeks. The transportation, storage, and vaccination time of the Moderna vaccine for children aged 5 to 11 years old is 31 days.

Both Covid-19 vaccines for children aged 5 to 11 have been tested, licensed by the World Health Organization and conditionally approved by the Ministry of Health for urgent needs in preventing the Covid-19 epidemic... These two vaccines are basically safe and effective. However, certain side effects have been recorded, such as fever, pain and swelling at the injection site, hives... at a more severe level, there are anaphylactic reactions but they are very rare. Actual records show that the rate of side effects of the two vaccines for children aged 5 to 11 is lower than that of adults.

Doctor Nguyen Trong Di noted: Children from 5 to 11 years old need to be vaccinated against Covid-19 because Covid-19 causes disease in humans at all ages. Adults and children are at risk of contracting Covid-19. Vaccination will create specific active immunity to protect children from the risk of Covid-19. Vaccinated children can prevent the disease from getting infected; if infected, it will be mild, reducing unwanted complications and deaths...

Children of this age need to go to school. This is a crowded place. At school, if only one child gets sick, the risk of the disease spreading to other children is very high because at this active age, children's awareness of disease prevention measures is not high. Vaccination for children from 5 to 11 years old means protecting the future of the country; helping children develop comprehensively both physically and mentally.

Regarding the phenomenon of many parents seeing their children infected with Covid-19 and having antibodies, they are hesitant to vaccinate their children against Covid-19 - Dr. Tran Van Cuong - Deputy Director of the Obstetrics and Pediatrics Hospital, Chairman of the Nghe An Young Physicians Association, discussed: "In reality, antibodies due to Covid-19 infection will decrease over time. Therefore, the best way to protect children from Covid-19 is still vaccination... The effectiveness of the vaccine is very good. In people who have been vaccinated, if they get Covid-19, the clinical symptoms are mild, with few complications; after 5-7 days of infection, the test is usually negative.

Dr. Tran Van Cuong: For children who are relatives of our medical staff, when there is an indication for vaccination, we always give the children vaccinations. Photo: Thanh Cuong

Regarding side effects of vaccination, Dr. Tran Van Cuong said: Vaccination is the introduction of an antigen into the body. When the antigen enters, it will create reactions and create antibodies. There will be local reactions, systemic reactions with mild or excessive levels. Side effects include chest pain, shortness of breath, palpitations, arrhythmia, myocarditis, pericarditis... However, we should not worry too much, because through a survey of hundreds of millions of people who have been vaccinated, severe and excessive reactions are very rare; mainly transient chest pain.

When it comes to vaccinating children from 5 to 11 years old, everyone should be bold enough to let their children get vaccinated. For children who are relatives of medical staff, when there is an indication for vaccination, we will let them get vaccinated - Dr. Tran Van Cuong affirmed.

Doctors recommend: Covid-19 vaccines have been tested, inspected, and approved by trusted health organizations for safety and effectiveness. Families and guardians need to support the government's policy of vaccinating children from 5 to 11 years old against Covid-19.

When getting vaccinated, parents and guardians need to honestly declare their child's health status in detail to the medical staff at the vaccination sites. This will help the medical staff to conduct a good screening and provide appropriate vaccination advice for each child.

During the vaccination process, families and guardians need to coordinate with medical staff to monitor children for at least 30 minutes after vaccination at the vaccination sites to prevent individual situations where children have unwanted side effects, as well as to handle these situations.

During the 7 days after vaccination, the family and guardians also need to continue to closely monitor the child's post-vaccination situation. If any unusual symptoms or signs appear, the child should be taken to the nearest medical facility for treatment to ensure safety after vaccination.