FAQ
Status: 08/16/2021 3:50 p.m.
The Standing Vaccination Commission now recommends vaccinating children and adolescents between the ages of twelve and 17. The vaccination remains voluntary. Answers to important questions.
What does the STIKO say?
The Standing Vaccination Commission (STIKO) has updated its previous recommendation. So far there has not been a general vaccination recommendation for children over the age of twelve. The STIKO recommended a corona vaccination only to particularly vulnerable children and adolescents with certain previous illnesses. The reason was that there was still too little data. That has now changed, because in other countries, such as Israel, the USA and Canada, children and adolescents are already vaccinated.
The STIKO has evaluated this data and has now updated its recommendation. Now the STIKO comes to the conclusion that, according to the current state of knowledge, the advantages of vaccination outweigh the risk of very rare vaccination side effects. The vaccination should continue to take place after medical advice. According to the STIKO, vaccination in children and adolescents should not be made a prerequisite for social participation. In this way, the STIKO ensures more safety for vaccinating doctors, parents and children.
“The vaccination remains voluntary and must not be made a requirement for school attendance,” said Federal Family Minister Christine Lambrecht.
What are the advantages of a vaccination?
According to the current state of research, children have a low risk of becoming seriously ill – but it can happen. Scientists from England and Scotland have studied the spread of the new Delta variant. The data show that the number of children who become infected is actually increasing in the UK. However, the number of infected children and adolescents who have to be treated in hospital remains low. This applies to both England as well as for Scotland.
Small children are often asymptomatic, says the specialist in pediatric and adolescent medicine, Robin Kobbe, im tagesschau.de-Interview. Some of them might have a cold, maybe a little fever, says the doctor at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf. Adolescents, on the other hand, were closer to the symptoms of young adults. Sometimes they had a sore throat, maybe a fever and cough, and there could be a loss of taste and smell. More serious illnesses occur very rarely, reports Kobbe. In addition to Covid in children with severe pre-existing conditions, it is primarily the so-called PIM syndrome.
What is PIM Syndrome?
Around four to six weeks after an infection with SARS-CoV-2, even previously healthy children can experience severe symptoms: high fever, inflammation of the mucous membranes, swelling of the lymph nodes, skin rash, red hands, some with cardiovascular problems. The novel syndrome – Pediatric Inflammatory Multisystem Syndrome – is called PIMS for short. It is an inflammation in several organs, apparently triggered by an overreaction of the immune system. the German Society for Pediatric Infectious Diseases (DGPI) has been recording PIM syndrome cases since May 27, 2020 – So the serious illnesses in children and adolescents. The DGPI will report 395 PIMS cases by July 25, 2021.
How high is the risk of long-term consequences with Covid disease?
The data on long-term effects in children are still very thin. In a UK survey, ten to 15 percent of children still show at least one symptom five weeks after an acute infection. A Canadian study estimates that six percent of infected children develop Long Covid. The scientists evaluated the data from more than 10,500 children who were tested for SARS-CoV-2. The children came to an emergency room between March 2020 and June 15, 2021. The data from 41 emergency clinics in ten countries were evaluated: Australia, Canada, Indonesia, the USA as well as three countries in South America and three in Western Europe.
Common persistent symptoms were respiratory problems in two percent of cases, general physical complaints such as fatigue and fever in two percent of cases, neurological complaints such as headache, seizures and persistent loss of taste or smell in one percent of cases, and psychological complaints such as developing a Depression and anxiety disorder in one percent of cases. Persistent symptoms were more likely to have persistent symptoms in children aged 10 to 17 than in children under one year of age. A Russian study comes to a similar conclusion.
Vaccination in children, just like in adults, could prevent a severe course of Covid 19 disease and long-term consequences.
What are the risks?
When vaccinating children, the focus is always on weighing up the personal benefits of a vaccination and the possible risks. One argument against vaccination is that, from a medical point of view, children hardly benefit from vaccination because they often have only mild courses. In the USA and Israel, where children have been vaccinated for a long time, cases of myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, have occurred in rare cases after the second vaccination with the mRNA vaccines from BioNTech / Pfizer and Moderna.
Teams of experts examine the connections between vaccinations in young people and the occasional inflammation of the heart muscle (myocarditis) or the pericardium (pericarditis). The Paul Ehrlich Institute reported on July 15th but that up to June 30th in Germany in the age group twelve to 15 years no suspicious reports of pericarditis or myocarditis had been reported. There are a total of 173 cases of myocarditis and / or pericarditis in people who were vaccinated with the Comirnaty vaccine from BioNTech / Pfizer (with more than 54 million vaccine doses). With the preparation Spikevax from Moderna, there were 31 cases (with more than 6.4 million vaccine doses). The benefit of the vaccination continues to outweigh all risks, according to the Paul Ehrlich Institute.
What is known about vaccine reactions?
According to the manufacturers BioNTech / Pfizer and Moderna, the side effects in children with both vaccines are comparable to those in adults. This means that there may be pain, swelling and redness at the injection site. Fatigue, headache and muscle pain, chills, joint pain, fever, nausea, malaise and also swelling of the lymph nodes are possible. The vaccination reactions usually lasted only a few days after the vaccination.
What studies for children’s vaccines are currently ongoing?
BioNTech / Pfizer started a study in children from six months to eleven years old in March 2021. In the current phase II, around 4500 young people are to be tested for the effectiveness and dosage of the vaccine. Results could be available from September.
Moderna started the phase II / III study in March. More than 6,700 children between six months and under twelve years of age are expected to take part. Again, it’s about effectiveness and dosage. It is still unclear when there will be results.
Sinovac has been testing its vaccine in China since the beginning of May. In phase II, minors between the ages of three and 17 are to be tested here. It’s about effectiveness and dosage.