The Department of Health has yet to issue a recommendation to start vaccinating children against COVID-19 even as an emergency use authorization has already been given for the use of Moderna and Pfizer shots for minors aged 12 to 17 years old.
“Tthe DOH and experts in the vaccine cluster have not yet issued a recommendation for vaccination of children. We are studying the matter very carefully.” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said on Saturday.
The Food and Drug Administration on Friday amended Moderna’s EUA, clearing it for 12 to 17-year-olds.
FDA chief Eric Domingo said doctors had to watch out for “very rare” cases of myocarditis that those who received Moderna and another mRNA vaccine, Pfizer-BioNTech, might develop. Myocarditis is a type of inflammation of the heart muscle.
The FDA in August approved the emergency use of the Pfizer vaccine for children aged 12 and up.
Vergeire said the DOH will conduct an information campaign regarding vaccination of children against COVID-19.
“There is some resistance or hesitancy among parents to have their children vaccinated,” she said.
The Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases has approved the inclusion of people from other age groups and those with comorbidities for COVID-19 clinical trials, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said.
Roque said the IATF approved the recommendation to prioritize Phase 3 clinical trials that will enroll volunteers in pediatric age groups (six months-12 years old), the elderly (more than 60 years old), pregnant mothers, patients with immunodeficiency, patients with autoimmune diseases, patients with renal diseases and patients with chronic respiratory diseases.
In the UK, an independent advisory body on vaccines said it would not recommend jabbing all 12- to 15-year-olds against COVID-19, arguing the benefits were “too small.”
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), a panel of experts which advises ministers, has been weighing the issue after numerous other countries began giving the jabs to young teens.
It has previously recommended giving approved COVID-19 vaccines to all 16- and 17-year-olds but only to 12- to 15-year-olds who have underlying health conditions that make them more vulnerable to the virus.
“The margin of benefit, based primarily on a health perspective, is considered too small to support advice on a universal program of vaccination of otherwise healthy 12- to 15-year-old children at this time,” it said.
“As longer-term data on potential adverse reactions accrue, greater certainty may allow for a reconsideration of the benefits and harms.”
The recommendation contrasts with the United States, which announced in May that younger teens would be vaccinated, and many European Union countries including France which have begun jabbing that age group.
In the Philippines, schools across the country have remained closed since March last year when the pandemic broke out, with learners at the basic education level remaining at their homes as the government has yet to include individuals aged 17 years and below in its vaccination rollout program.
This early, though, the Department of Education is already proposing to hold a dry run of limited face-to-face classes in 120 schools.
Education Undersecretary Nepomuceno Malaluan said once President Rodrigo Duterte allows the pilot test, the dry-run will cover 100 public schools and 20 private schools.
In Cuba, authorities on Friday launched a national campaign to vaccinate children aged two to 18 against COVID-19, a prerequisite set by the Communist government for schools to reopen amid a spike in infections.
Children aged 12 and older will be the first to receive one of the two domestically produced vaccines, Abdala and Soberana, followed by younger kids.
Schools have mostly been closed in Cuba since March 2020, and students have been following lessons on television. With the school year starting Monday, they will continue learning remotely until all eligible children are vaccinated.