INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — Private companies have offered to buy more COVID-19 vaccines for their employees’ children, but medical experts, including Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, want the inoculation of minors deferred until a considerable percentage of the adult population has been inoculated.
In a television interview on Tuesday, Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion said employers were willing to buy vaccines for their workers’ children, under a multiparty agreement together with the national government.
He made this suggestion after hospitals have reported more minors getting infected with COVID-19 in the last few months.
To be sure, the majority of hospital admissions across all pediatric age groups involve children with comorbidities, according to the Philippine Pediatric Society (PPS) and the Pediatric Infectious Disease Society of the Philippines (PIDSP).
Still, both groups cited data from the National Children’s Hospital which showed it had 12 cases of minors with COVID-19 in June and 19 more such cases in July.
Meanwhile, the Philippine Children’s Medical Center had 18 confirmed cases of minors with the novel coronavirus in June and five more cases in July.
The Philippine General Hospital on Sunday reported that it was treating at least six pediatric COVID-19 patients, with three in critical condition.
‘Bringing Pfizer’
Concepcion suggested that “Similar to what we’ve done with AstraZeneca, with Moderna, we’d like to help the government in bringing Pfizer. The government has ordered a lot for its own use and the [local governments]. But the private sector would like to see how we can bring Pfizer so that eventually, we can use this for our children.”
In June, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) amended its emergency use authorization on the Pfizer vaccine to include the 12 to 15 age group. That authorization followed a month after a similar action by the FDA’s US counterpart for the same age group.
Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr., the chief implementer of the National Task Force Against COVID-19, has recommended the start of pediatric vaccination by September or October. But the Department of Health (DOH) said it was against it at this time because of the limited supply of vaccines.
In his report during President Duterte’s Talk to the People televised address on Monday, Duque said “We should put in mind the current supply of the vaccines before we decide or permit the vaccination of children. That is why we are retaining the DOH recommendation to give priority to the vaccination of adults based on our prioritization framework.”
But he also said “[W]e can consider actually giving vaccination already to children who might be having comorbidities—like those who have heart, kidney, brain disease. Maybe this would help give them extra protection against the deadly COVID-19.”
Still, Duque said he and other experts from the DOH, the PPS, and the PIDSP share the view that minors should be vaccinated in due time.
Position paper
The two pediatric groups issued a joint position paper on Tuesday saying that “Currently, there is no concrete evidence to support that this [Delta] variant [of COVID-19] is more virulent and may cause more severe disease in children.”
The PPS and PIDSP made that assertion, despite citing data on children with COVID-19 cases.
Both groups maintained there was still “a lack of comprehensive local data on hospital admissions, case severity, and disease outcomes” of COVID-19 in children, but added that “studies on safety and efficacy of vaccines in young children are also ongoing.”
The pediatricians pointed out further that no country has yet included “young children” in its vaccination program. Meanwhile, only 10 percent of the country’s population so far have been fully vaccinated, they said.“There are suboptimal vaccination rates among senior citizens, while the vaccination of economic front-liners, those that cannot remain at home, is only just beginning,” the pediatric groups said.
They added: “The best way to protect children against COVID-19 is to vaccinate the adults who take care of them.” The pediatricians called this the “cocoon strategy.”
“Vaccinating qualified adult household members not only protects these individuals but also extends protection to children and other vulnerable persons who cannot be vaccinated,” they said.