FILE PHOTO: World Health Organization logo is reflected in a drop on a syringe needle in this illustration photo taken March 16, 2021. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
MANILA, Philippines — Spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine will put “children’s lives at stake,” an official of the World Health Organization (WHO) in the Philippines warned on Friday.
Acting WHO Representative to the Philippines Dr. Rajendra Prasad Yadav urged children to get vaccination against COVID-19 and cautioned against creating “unnecessarily panic among parents by spreading misinformation.”
“I would appeal to the people who may be spreading misinformation to not do that because then we’ll be putting our children’s lives at stake,” Yadav said during the Laging Handa briefing.
He warned that unvaccinated children are “likely to develop severe COVID and die especially if they have comorbidities.”
The WHO official assured that vaccines against COVID-19 “are very safe.”
“We have not seen that these vaccines are causing any more side effects than other vaccines…So I encourage all parents to go out and get vaccinated for their children,” he added.
Yadav further said available COVID-19 vaccines “have been used in many countries including in younger age groups.”
“WHO has approved them so we continue to recommend that these vaccines should be used in children too,” he added.
As of Thursday, around 52,000 children aged 5 to 11 have been vaccinated against COVID-19 across the country, according to Department of Health (DOH) Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje.
The DOH, Cabotaje said, recorded five “non-serious” adverse events among those vaccinated.
Recently, a petition was filed before the Quezon City Regional Trial Court to stop the DOH from vaccinating children aged 5 to 11 against COVID-19.
The petition was filed by parents with children aged 5 to 11. They are represented by the Public Attorneys’ Office.
The DOH, for its part, said it has no plans to discontinue its immunization program in order to “protect all sections of society.”
“We recognize their right to file a case, and we will wait for the legal process to take its course,” it said in a previous statement.