‘Vaccinate the children in the 12-18 age group’

Sri Lanka should vaccinate children in the 12-18 age group, said Consultant Paediatrician Dr. B.J.C. Perera, pointing out that only “a very small number” in the 12-21 year age group had been affected by any adverse effect in other countries.

Reiterating that children are also affected by COVID-19 and it is no different to adults, he said that in comparison, children may be asymptomatic (without symptoms) or mildly symptomatic but they can spread the virus to others.

“The chances of a child spreading the illness (transmitting) to another child are very high and could be as much as adults or even more. They have close contact with each other and travel together,” he said, turning the focus on jam-packed school vans, buses and trains. The downside is that there may not even be an indication that COVID-19 is spreading rapidly among them.

Dr. Perera strengthened his stand for vaccination by talking of the recent COVID-19 complications that children had suffered in the aftermath of an infection. Of particular concern, he said, was Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome [MIS- C (Children)], a rare but serious condition in which different parts of the body including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes or gastrointestinal organs can get inflamed.

Taking up the issue of vaccine adverse effects, he pointed out that any medication or vaccine could adversely affect a very small number and that is what had happened with the mRNA Pfizer vaccine.

Myocarditis and pericarditis (inflammation of the membrane lining the heart) occurred very rarely in the 12-21 age group.

“This adverse effect had been recorded more in males after a couple of weeks of the second dose. Therefore, the way forward is to closely monitor children who get the vaccine and arm the parents with knowledge so that at the first sign of difficulty in breathing or chest pain after the jab, they would bring the child to hospital,” added Dr. Perera.

If your child has caught the COVID-19 infection, give him/ her the vaccine after about a month has lapsed after the infection, he advises as he has got numerous calls from parents of children with co-morbidities who are now being given the vaccine. This is because there may be some interference with the full effectiveness of the vaccine by antibodies produced by the natural infection.