SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Dec. 13 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Ministry of Health of the Government of the Canary Islands received this morning the first consignment of 54,000 doses of vaccines against COVID-19 for the vaccination of the pediatric population of the islands aged between 5 and 11 years, since this cohort of age has already been included in the National Vaccination Strategy against COVID-19.
As reported by the Ministry of Health in a press release, it is a first batch of vials made by the Ministry of Health based on the target population of each autonomous community and that will be completed in January with new shipments .
The vaccination of this age group, made up of 136,910 boys and girls in the Canary Islands, will begin this Wednesday, December 15, as in the rest of the autonomous communities, prioritizing the vaccination of the immunosuppressed pediatric population that will be directly summoned by their hospital of reference.
This group includes children in the Canary Islands who have undergone bone marrow or solid organ transplants or are on the waiting list for this. Also those who are undergoing hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis treatment, or with a diagnosis of oncohematological diseases, solid organ cancer under treatment with cytotoxic chemotherapy, metastatic or radiotherapy for tumors of thoracic location with risk of pneumonitis, or for primary immunodeficiencies, infection with HIV with less than 200 cells / ml despite effective ART and undetectable viral load, cystic fibrosis, Down syndrome, people with immunosuprensive treatment, cyanogenic congenital heart disease, nephrotic syndrome or congenital metabolic diseases.
To access the vaccination, you can make an appointment by calling 012 or by calling 922470012 or 928301012. You can also make an appointment through the mobile application for prior appointment of the Canary Islands Health Service (SCS).
The objective, as established by the Public Health Commission, is to protect minors not only from the disease in its acute facet, but also against possible future conditions and against the persistent COVID syndrome. Vaccination in the child population can help reduce the burden of disease in this group and the transmission in the family environment, in educational centers and in the community, in addition to helping to reduce the appearance of new variants of this virus.
TYPE OF VACCINE
The Comirnaty childhood vaccine (from Pfizer) has been authorized by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for the population between 5 and 11 years of age and will be dispensed in vials other than those used for the adult population. It has shown an efficacy against symptomatic COVID-19 of 90.7% in clinical trials with boys and girls between 5 and 11 years old. As in the older age group, it is administered in two doses, but in pediatric vaccination these doses will be separated by an interval of 8 weeks, and will be injected into the arm.
The Canary Islands Health Service has been working together with the scientific societies of Pediatrics to start the vaccination of this age cohort with the maximum guarantees and confidence of the scientific community. And always under the premise that vaccines have proven to be the first measure of prevention of infectious-contagious diseases, being safe and effective.
The forecast of the Ministry of Health is to have mass vaccination points and health centers for the vaccination of the child population, whose points and circuits will be defined in the coming days. In addition, it has coordinated with the Ministry of Education foreseeing all possible scenarios to be able to activate all vaccination devices in the most agile way possible and as the vaccination campaign progresses, especially from the month of January.
In addition, the vaccination teams will continue to vaccinate the rest of the population pending a first dose and those that correspond to the second or third.