Confidence voiced as Chile follows China’s lead in inoculating children

Pediatrician Juan Pablo Torres said that China’s experience in vaccinating young children against COVID-19 has given him confidence that Chile is on the right path by following suit.

Torres, from the faculty of medicine of the University of Chile in Santiago, commented after the Public Health Institute of Chile gave the green light early this month for children to be vaccinated. They are getting a vaccine from Chinese drugmaker Sinovac Biotech.

“It has been administered to children with chronic diseases, as well as (those) with obesity,” Torres said of the vaccination campaign, under which around 35,000 children have been inoculated since Sept 13.

Now all children between the ages of 7 and 11 can receive the vaccine, he said.

Chile’s approval of the use of the Sinovac vaccine, called CoronaVac, for children marks another milestone in the fight against COVID19. Only a few countries, including China, are vaccinating children that young.

In granting the approval, Chilean regulators analyzed studies done on children in China. Torres was on the committee that reviewed and approved the use of the vaccine for minors.

Data from the Phase I/II study was published in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases, and Sinovac added a Phase IIb study with safety data and adverse events data for about 40 million children in China, with 63 million doses, Torres said. “That data showcased similar effects as those in older populations, without generating any safety concerns.”

Approval was helped by the fact that Sinovac uses vaccine technology that relies on an inactivated version of the virus that causes COVID19. The company has published its research widely in international peer-reviewed publications.

“The information published in international journals, going through all the review processes, has allowed us to provide the scientific basis to move to this new stage,” said Sebastian Ugarte, director of the critical care medicine program at Andres Bello National University in Santiago.

“Chile is also joining a research project, with the recruitment of minors, to add evidence in a Phase III study,” Ugarte said.

Ugarte praised the move by Chile’s regulators to expand the vaccination campaign in the country. To date, Chile has vaccinated about 88 percent of the target population, not including minors.

“With the emergence of new variants, higher infection rates occur in some cases,” he said. “This makes it more difficult to reach the elusive threshold of herd immunity, and it is not enough to vaccinate 70 or 75 percent of the adult population. Even higher numbers are required.

“In that sense, vaccinating schoolchildren could be an important addition to the vaccination program that has already advanced in Chile.”

According to Torres, “The data already shows that (unvaccinated) children are increasing the number of those who get infected.”

The vaccination strategy also will protect teachers, he added.

Only about 12 percent of COVID19 cases in Chile reportedly involve people under 18 years old, and just 1.7 percent of those required hospitalization.

Jerome Kim, director-general of the International Vaccine Institute in Seoul, South Korea, said: “The approval of Sinovac for children 6 years of age and older is an important step in the establishment of broad immunity in a population.

“Importantly, we need to verify that vaccination of this age group has similar effectiveness and, more importantly, an impact on the control of COVID-19.”

Overall, Sinovac shots have accounted for about three-fourths of all COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in Chile. The South American country has also approved the use of the Pfizer vaccine on children as young as 12.

The data already shows that (unvaccinated) children are increasing the number of those who get infected.”

Juan Pablo Torres, a pediatrician from the faculty of medicine of the University of Chile in Santiago