“And you, what do you think ?” This is certainly one of the questions that Brigitte Virey, pediatrician in Dijon (Côte-d’Or) and president of the National Union of French Pediatricians (SNPF), hears the most, since the government opened up vaccination to children of 5 to 11 years old at risk of contracting a severe form of Covid-19, mid-December. Curious, concerned or worried, parents are testing the waters. And they will undoubtedly be more and more numerous to seek the advice of pediatricians, since all children aged 5 to 11 can be vaccinated since December 22.
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Most of the time, parents are more worried than their children. At the opening of the vaccination for 12-17 year olds last spring, Noémie Perez, head of the pediatric emergency department in Valenciennes, remembers the many questions asked by parents, while their teenagers had only one a hurry: take advantage of the injection to regain a normal life.
Brigitte Virey’s answering machine is overflowing with these parental concerns. “I call back in the evening, after the day of consultations, says the specialist. Some also send me emails to ask me what I think. It’s very time consuming, but essential. “
For Brigitte Virey, “we must offer vaccination” every 5-11 years, especially if the child is at risk of developing a severe form of the disease or if a member of his family is “at risk”. In particular, pediatricians may need to address the risk of pediatric multisystemic inflammatory syndrome (Pims) in very rare children infected with Sars-CoV-2. Between March 2, 2020 and November 21, 2021, 702 cases linked to Covid-19 of this very serious syndrome were counted, according to Public Health France.
They also advance the collective benefit of vaccination. “Our fear is the Omicron variant, emphasizes Brigitte Virey. Even if it can bypass vaccination, it will preferentially go to unvaccinated people. “ Faced with the low number of complications in the youngest, Noémie Perez considers this argument to be essential: “In the same way that children are vaccinated against rubella”, a mild disease, but against which we vaccinate all children, “Because congenital rubella is a disaster. For a pregnant woman not to catch it, she must be vaccinated, but also that all the children around her are.”
Then come the inevitable questions about the adverse effects of the vaccine. “We must remain factual and rely on the balance of benefits and risks. Then parents have the elements to make their choice”, says Brigitte Virey. An essential step, because they mainly rely on the opinion of the pediatrician to make a decision. “It should be explained that the most common risks are the same as those of adults: pain at the injection site or in the arm, fever, fatigue, headaches”, lists the practitioner.
As for the risk of myocarditis (an inflammation of the heart muscle), it remains “very weak”, she recalls, citing a study conducted in the United States, where vaccination of 5-11 year olds has been open since November 3. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, link in english), out of more than 7 million doses administered, only eight cases of myocarditis were identified as of December 10 (and most were cured or in the process of being cured at the publication of the report).
“If we want this vaccination campaign to be a success, we must be 100% transparent with families”, insists Christelle Gras-Le Guen, head of the pediatric emergency department in Nantes and president of the French Pediatric Society (SFP), interviewed by franceinfo. “This is a decisive step for parents to go and have their child vaccinated.” Jean-François Pujol, pediatrician in Gironde and secretary general of the SNPF, believes that this transparency is all the more necessary in the context of mistrust vis-à-vis vaccines. “You have to be as clear as possible, he slices. When we do not know, we must say that we do not know, and not falsely reassure. “
Pediatricians also refer families who are often lost in the procedures to follow in the event of contamination. A cap of“social worker” that Brigitte Virey puts on every day in her Dijon office. She is also well requested on the procedures to be followed with the health insurance and the school. “The instructions [du ministère de l’Education nationale] change so often that parents don’t know how to react “, sympathizes the pediatrician.
Sometimes parents are not only worried, but completely resistant. For Christelle Parache, liberal pediatrician in Salon-de-Provence (Bouches-du-Rhône), “We can enlighten them, we are not there to oblige or convince them”. If despite the arguments in favor of vaccination, parents maintain that they will not vaccinate their children, “I will not seek to go beyond their decision”.
Same story with the hospital of Valenciennes, in the North, where the hospital center is regularly attacked on social networks by antivax. On social networks, not a single publication escapes hateful comments (not even those featuring Christmas trees), to the chagrin of Noémie Perez, head of the pediatric emergency department: “It takes time to try to explain and to dismantle the received ideas, she regrets. But what do you want to do? Some have listened too much to the conspirators, and in these cases there is nothing that can be done. “
The specialist does not always suggest vaccination spontaneously. “If the parents ask me the question, I will advise them, she sums up. Otherwise, I won’t be doing more at this time. ” She remembers in particular a consultation with the mother of a child followed for a digestive problem. “I didn’t even try to broach the subject, she confides. I wasn’t brave, but she wasn’t my patient, so I thought to myself that it might not be wise for me to spend half an hour arguing, or it could escalate. “ The practitioner prefers “wait for things to calm down a bit, because locally, the situation is tense.”
For the time being, vaccination of 5-11 year olds is in any case not compulsory. And it should not become or be associated with a health pass, according to the professionals interviewed. “It seems essential to us that this vaccination is not linked to constraints on the school life of the children, their social life or their sporting life”, insists Christelle Gras-Le Guen. “To make it compulsory would seem totally inappropriate to us.” For Jean-François Pujol, “the first question is whether adults and children over 12 are vaccinated.” “They are the priority”, he recalls.