WHO recommends vaccination of kids with comorbidities but elderly should be priority
MANILA, Philippines — The World Health Organization in the Western Pacific on Wednesday recommended that children with comorbidities living in areas with high virus transmission can be vaccinated against COVID-19.
The regional office of the UN health agency, however, emphasized that the elderly must still be prioritized for inoculation.
“WHO is recommending to countries where children have comorbidities, and if these children are in places where there is ongoing community transmission as well as formation of clusters, then children could be vaccinated,” said Dr. Socorro Escalante, WHO Western Pacific coordinator for essential medicines and health technologies.
“But again, we still need to put that in the context of prioritizing the elderly which are more vulnerable to severe disease,” she added.
According to experts, children have a lower risk of getting a severe case of the disease than older adults when they get infected with COVID-19.
Only the vaccine made by Pfizer-BioNTech has been approved by the country’s Food and Drug Administration for emergency use in 12- to 15-year-olds. The drug regulator is also studying the requests of drugmakers Moderna and Sinovac Biotech to allow the use of their jabs in kids and teenagers.
However, the Philippines has yet to begin vaccinating children and teenagers against COVID-19 due to limited supply of jabs and the need to prioritize the vulnerable sectors of the population.
To shield children from possible COVID-19 infection, medical and children's rights organizations have been calling on the government to ramp up the vaccination of adults.
Booster shots
The WHO also reiterated its position that booster shots are still not needed at the moment.
“We really do not have sufficient evidence to say that we need booster doses now,” Escalante said.
“For now, the focus should be ensuring that countries use limited vaccine supplies to fully vaccinate people with first and second doses especially the priority groups who are most at risk of infection,” she added.
Only 12.1% of the country’s 109 million population have completed COVID-19 vaccination since the rollout began in March. Meanwhile, 16.05% of Filipinos have received partial protection. — Gaea Katreena Cabico
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