Vaccination for 5-11 year olds aims “to protect them from serious forms in the face of the increased circulation of the virus”, explains Professor Elisabeth Bouvet, president of the technical committee on vaccinations within the High Authority for Health (HAS) and guest of franceinfo on Monday. The authority today decided in favor of the vaccination of children of this age group.
Franceinfo: What is the interest, according to the Haute Autorité de santé, to be vaccinated for children aged 5 to 11?
Elisabeth Bouvet: The first interest is for themselves. Children rarely get serious forms, but they can. As the number of cases in children increases, the number of severe cases will increase because the virus is currently circulating much more in children. And since children who develop severe forms often do not have any particular risk factors, that is to say that they are not children who can be spotted in advance, there is a benefit. direct which is therefore to protect them from these serious forms.
Are children being vaccinated because today there are 6 million eligible adults who refuse the vaccine?
No, that was not the spirit in which the recommendation was made. Moreover, it is a proposal and the message is rather that parents who want to vaccinate their children between 5 and 11 years old, it is to protect them from serious forms for themselves. We will have very little impact on the circulation of the virus, at least for now, because we do not expect high vaccination coverage. Let us not forget that there are adults who are immunocompromised and that if, by vaccination, we limit the risk of the child transmitting the virus, that is a good thing. But that’s not what we count on to protect the rest of the population.
Is the vaccine for children a particular dosage, much less strong than the vaccine for adults?
Yes it is a vaccine which is divided by three compared to the vaccine for adults, which is adapted to the weight of children. It has been tested and evaluated in children and is well tolerated. We have been very vigilant on this, which is why we waited to have data, called “pharmacovigilance”, sufficiently provided not to put children at risk. We have more than 5 to 7 million young Americans of that age who have been vaccinated and the data that we have on the tolerance of this vaccination are excellent.
Does this data you refer to show that this vaccine is safe for children?
It comes with risks like all vaccines. There are the phenomena of myocarditis, which are inflammatory attacks of the heart which can occur but which are always resolving and seem to be less frequent at this age than in slightly older children, especially in adolescents. This risk of myocarditis is not completely zero, but it is extremely low.