The composition of the Covid-19 vaccine approved for adults is the same one that may soon be used in children. However, by an immunological comparison, following data from studies available to date, “children need a lower dose to have the same immunogenicity”. This is what Luana Araújo explains, infectologist and epidemiologist.
“The vaccines that we have purchased today in Brazil are not suitable for being applied to children. It’s not the health center at the end that has to take less, dilute differently, it’s not like that, they need to be bought for this population. There are approximately 17 million children in this age group in the country,” he told CNN.
Pfizer said on Thursday (11) that it intends to formally send the request for permission to vaccinate children aged 5 to 11 by the end of November. The request will be sent to the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa).
In Luana’s assessment, approval should be quick, since the permission from the American agency provides support for the analysis in Brazil.
“If the data are offered there with this answer, it makes Anvisa’s work here a lot easier, which, obviously, will review all of this, but it already does this with an upholstery that guarantees an easier approximation. And then, we need to acquire these doses, distribute them and make them available to the population.”
The epidemiologist believes that, if approved, the vaccine will only reach children in 2022. “I don’t believe that will happen until the end of the year [2021]. In fact, I think that this negotiation should already be taking place in parallel with the approval process”, he suggests.
The epidemiologist emphasized that 900,000 children have already been vaccinated in the United States and there was no incidence of any serious adverse event.
“The fact is that it is a lower dose, so it has a lower incidence of adverse events, while still being extremely immunogenic, providing protection for these children. We have no reason to be worried and not take the children to be vaccinated”, he defends.
Luana Araújo also remembers that, without a vaccine, children continue to be vectors for maintaining circulation.
“We know that today, regardless of age, the main target audience for the virus is the non-vaccinated. We may even have a reduction in the moving average of deaths in general in the population, but if it is concentrated in the age group between zero and twelve years old, we have a serious problem”, he concludes.
(Published by Sinara Peixoto)
Reference: CNN Brasil
