Following a meeting held from March 20 to 23 of this year, the World Health Organization’s Strategic Advisory Expert Group (SAGE) determined that healthy children and adolescents do not need the vaccine against Covid-19.
WHO: Healthy children and adolescents do not need the vaccine against Covid-19 / Photo: Getty Images
Who should be vaccinated against Covid-19?
According to the meeting roadmap, there is still a division of groups according to the level of risk they have of presenting complications and even death from Covid-19. The groups are:
- High priority. In this sector are vulnerable groups such as the elderly, people with risk diseases (diabetes, heart disease, HIV or transplant recipients), pregnant people and frontline health personnel.
- Medium priority: This group includes people without comorbidities who are under 50 or 60 years of age, as well as children and adolescents with risk diseases.
- Low priority: Refers to healthy children and adolescents between 6 months and 17 years of age.
WHO: Healthy children and adolescents do not need the vaccine against Covid-19 / Photo: Getty Images
How often do I have to get vaccinated against Covid-19?
The updated statement from the World Health Organization establishes some recommendations that depend on the degree of priority to know how often it is necessary to vaccinate against Covid-19.
- High priority group: SAGE experts recommend that they be given an additional booster dose every 6 to 12 months after the last dose received of the Covid-19 vaccine.
- Medium priority group: For this sector, the WHO only recommends having the first complete vaccination schedule because although the boosters are safe, they do not really represent a difference in terms of protection for healthy people between 50 and 60 years of age.
For the case of the low priority group, the WHO determines that healthy children and adolescents do not need the vaccine against Covid-19However, he urged nations to make their decisions based on the social context and the possibilities of each country, taking risk factors into account.
“In comparative terms, the health benefits of vaccinating healthy children and adolescents are much lower than the consolidated benefits,” the statement mentioned.
The international organization recommends that although healthy children and adolescents do not need the vaccine against Covid-19nations should not lose sight of maintaining and improving childhood vaccination schemes against diseases that represent the greatest risk for this sector of the population.
For example, vaccines against polio, measles, among others.
WHO: Healthy children and adolescents do not need the vaccine against Covid-19 / Photo: iStock
What are the symptoms of polio?
The World Health Organization identifies the following symptoms:
In the most serious cases there may be irreversible paralysis, even in 5 to 10% of cases there is death due to paralysis of the respiratory muscles.
What are the symptoms of measles?
The Mayo Clinic reports that the symptoms of measles are:
- Fever
- Sore throat
- Dry cough
- Swollen eyes
- White spots with bluish centers inside the mouth
- Flat rash around the body
Do you have symptoms of a respiratory disease? We share this video with you to be able to identify if what you have is influenza or Covid-19: