rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt
Senior Paediatric Medicine Specialist, Dr Joanne Paul, has defended the move by the Government to introduce paediatric vaccines in T&T, after a small group of doctors called for the Government to rethink its strategy in vaccinating children.
The group of nine doctors had written a letter saying that vaccinating all children within the age category “is not supported by satisfactory evidence of an acceptable risk-benefit ratio and that central tenets of medical ethics, including “first do no harm” and informed consent, are being ignored.”
However, at yesterday’s virtual COVID-19 press conference, Dr Paul said T&T’s approach to the rollout is being adopted in a similar fashion internationally. She said it goes a long way to generating herd immunity among the category.
“Most countries have two approaches. So they have that approach (of) giving the vulnerable ones (children) or the high risk and the other approach was giving everyone,” she said.
“What they’ve found is that the first approach was very limited, so most have changed that approach. So although they (countries) had two choices, they have found the second approach to be the best way in terms of having it for all the children, no matter if it’s high-risk or low-risk, because what happens is that if all of them are protected, you have less transmission to everyone. So by protecting the low-risk, you’re actually protecting the high risk also. So they’ve found that entire process the best way to go.”
Siblings Liamand and Alexandria De Silva show their vaccination stickers after receiving their Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at the Southern Academy for the Performing Arts on Saturday.
KRISTIAN DE SILVA
She said it also helps to protect children who are obese, as the condition is now considered a comorbidity for COVID-19.
“So the best way to go is to really give it to everyone; no-risk, low-risk, high-risk, medium-risk, kinda-risk. You have to make sure everybody gets it, so you protect the first layer (of) vulnerable adults and elderly from the entire population,” she said.
The letter calling for the Government to rethink its plan was published in newspapers and signed by doctors Feroze Omardeen, David Strisiver, David Bratt, Nilash Ramnarine, Rajiv Seeraram, Keith Koo Min Chee, Gautam Tewarie, Sharon Lackan and Johnny Siu Chong.
According to Minister of Health Terrence Deyalsingh, 862 children between 5 to 11 years were administered their first doses in the week that the rollout has been operational.
He said there are over 100,000 children eligible for this vaccine.
