Israel Pediatric Society supports vaccination of 12- to 15-year-olds
The Israel Pediatric Society and the Health Ministry’s Infectious Diseases Unit on Tuesday said they support the vaccination against COVID-19 of children between the ages of 12 and 15.
The Pfizer vaccine has been found to be 100% effective in preventing disease among this age cohort in the most recent Pfizer trial, and it has an excellent safety profile both in clinical studies and in large-scale distribution in Israel, they said in a position paper.
The Pfizer vaccine has been given to more than 100 12to 15-year-olds in Israel who previously had a severe underlying medical condition, and it caused no dangerous side effects, they said.
Last Friday, Pfizer appealed to the US Food and Drug Administration for approval of its vaccine for inoculating 12- to 15-year-olds. Approval could be granted sometime next month, when Israeli health officials have said they want to begin vaccinating this age cohort.
The position paper does not indicate that vaccination of adolescents will be mandated, the head of the pediatric society, Dr. Zachi Grossman, told The Jerusalem Post.
“We are not going to mandate vaccines,” he said.
There likely would not be any long-term effects from administering the vaccine to youths, Grossman said.
“With vaccines, we generally know that what we don’t see in the first four to six weeks, we don’t see even if we wait five years,” he said.
The position paper, however, stressed that pediatric morbidity can result in hospitalization. One out of seven children who were hospitalized with the coronavirus in Israel were in moderate or serious condition, and seven of them died, the paper said.
Furthermore, even those children who experience relatively mild cases of the virus can later develop pediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome temporally associated with COVID-19 (PIMS-TS), which is similar to Kawasaki disease or toxic shock syndrome. They can also develop long-COVID, which is marked by persistent symptoms even after recovery, such as shortness of breath and fatigue.
“These numbers are not describing a healthy situation,” Grossman said. “Children have more mild cases than adults, and we are happy about that. But there is quite a significant level of morbidity among children, and we need to consider this.”
According to research cited by the Israel Pediatric Society, international studies indicate that one out of every seven or eight children who was diagnosed with COVID-19 suffered from persistent symptoms. In other words, if in Israel some 300,000 children were diagnosed with the virus, more than 40,000 are likely to still be suffering to some degree.
Infection among children also leads to the closure of schools. Research cited by the Education Ministry on Monday showed the negative impact of distance learning on the nation’s children. The Pediatric Society’s paper also cited “significant psychological
damage to children and adolescents” when schools are closed.
Without vaccination, Israel would have to look for other measures to prevent children
from contracting coronavirus and spreading it, Grossman said.
“Children – and even more so teenagers – have a role to play in spreading the disease,” especially among family members, the paper said.
Vaccinating children would help Israel achieve herd immunity, Grossman told the Post.
“Right now, we have more than five million vaccinated citizens and around 800,000 recovered out of nine million Israelis,” Grossman said. “And do not forget there are about a million Israelis above the age of 16 who did not go to get vaccinated yet. If you want to reach the six million or seven million number, you need to aim to vaccinate children.”
There are about 800,000 children in Israel between the ages of 12 and 15, he said, and if the country manages to vaccinate even 500,000 of them, “this [would be] a big step forward.”