The pandemic has hit pediatric vaccinations “causing delays, cancellations or cancellations, for fear of Covid”. He explains it to time.news Salute Chiara Azzari, immunologist and professor of pediatrics at the University of Florence and head of the Immunology laboratory at the Meyer hospital. “We are very worried, in this year of the Covid pandemic, pediatric vaccinations have decreased all over the world and also in Italy. The ones that have suffered the hardest blow are the vaccinations for meningococcus and HPV, followed by those with the hexavalent in the first year of life “.
“Unfortunately, the pandemic emergency has caused some priorities to change and also at the organizational level the resources, staff and many prevention structures have been redesigned to respond to the needs related to Covid – recalls the immunologist – this has taken away staff and spaces for vaccinations. traditional. But pediatric immunizations can be recovered, indeed they must absolutely be recovered even by pushing more on coadministrations which, in addition to being safe, can help rationalize the diaries of vaccination centers and help make up for lost time. In this way, we are relieving the centers that are now so busy with the pandemic. Then – he adds – pediatricians of free choice could also lend a hand, doing the backward vaccinations in their studies “.
On the co-administration of vaccines “the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Cdc) of Atlanta in their publication dedicated to vaccinations tell us very clearly that each immunization is co-administrable – remembers Azzari – therefore there is no problem in making hexavalent, pneumococcus and meningococcus together. We have the experience of the English public health that organize pediatric vaccinations with the administration of hexavalent, pneumococcus, meningococcus B and rotavirus. English children are certainly no different from Italian ones. Co-administration is an opportunity to retrieve 4 vaccines together if they have been postponed this year, for example “.
The anti-Covid vaccine effect as an opportunity to get out of the pandemic is also changing the approach of Italians to immunizations. “People are starting to understand that vaccines can save lives. I have never seen so much preparation on a scientific subject as in this year of emergency, there is a lot of ‘good’ information about vaccines and what people need to do. reliance “.
According to the immunologist, “in the future it could be advantageous to imagine a co-administration of the anti-Covid vaccine with those in the pediatric age“and in fact, for example, Moderna and Pfizer, anti-Covid vaccines for children and adolescents are being tested.” It may be that in a first phase these doses are administered at different times – suggests Azzari – to evaluate adverse events and not because they are dangerous, we are now well aware that very rare thrombotic events can occur but we have discovered this by vaccinating millions of people. “In conclusion, the immunologist sends a message to ‘late’ parents:” Vaccinations do they can recover at any time but we do not leave the children uncovered, we do not take any risks “.