Vietnam boosts access to COVID-19 vaccines for children

Children need early access to COVID-19 vaccines to achieve herd immunity as Vietnam is hoping.

Researchers at the Vietnam Military Medical University developing the home-grown Nanocovax vaccine against COVID-19. (Photo: NDO/Duy Linh)
Researchers at the Vietnam Military Medical University developing the home-grown Nanocovax vaccine against COVID-19. (Photo: NDO/Duy Linh)

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Dr. Pham Quang Thai, Deputy Head of the Department of Infectious Disease Control, National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, said that the rate of children infected with COVID-19 was low, with most of the symptoms being mild. However, they also need early access to the vaccine to complete the formation of a herd immunity shield.

In early June, at a meeting with Robyn Mudie, Australian Ambassador to Vietnam, Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long said one of Vietnam's priorities in COVID-19 prevention is early and widespread access to vaccines against COVID-19.

With a desire to expand the coverage of COVID-19 vaccines for children aged 12-18, the Ministry of Health has proposed using AUD3.5 million to buy the Pfizer vaccine to inject Vietnamese children. This amount is from the AUD40 million package that the Australia gave Vietnam for three years to purchase COVID-19 vaccines through the COVAX Facility mechanism currently providing Vietnam with the AstraZeneca vaccine.

This is Vietnam's first proposal to address the issue of access to vaccines against COVID-19 for Vietnamese children. The information has received great attention from parents in light of the complicated and challenging epidemic developments in the current fourth wave.

Dr. Thai said that compared to adults, the proportion of infected children with severe illness or death is not high, so experts are still considering whether to vaccinate them or not. However, children also contribute to the transmission chain, and if infected, can also spread the virus to others, they must also be the object of protection. Currently, countries like the US and those in the Europe are conducting clinical trials of vaccines against COVID-19 for children.

“The younger the age, the stronger the response to the vaccines, so clinical trials in children are more complicated and require closer observation and supervision. Therefore, when considering vaccination for children, manufacturers must adjust the content, even the formula, so as not to cause too strong reactions in children and young people," said Thai.

According to him, currently the world has finished clinical trials of vaccines for children on a small scale in phase 2, while phase 3 seeing a scale of 1,000-30,000, is still in progress. Because the subjects are young, the study was very cautious. Even in the US, researchers have taken steps to reduce the age in their trials, from developing vaccines for 18-year-olds, to 16 and 12 years old. However, researchers have not been able to reduce it further because of the fact that young children infected with the virus have extremely low rates of serious complications.

"We think of the goal of having vaccines for children is to reduce the ability of children to distribute the virus, but clinically, children's symptoms are mild, nowhere near as severe as adults," Dr. Thai emphasised.

The results of a clinical trial for children and adolescents aged 12-18 years, conducted since July 2020 by Pfizer in the US, showed high protective efficacy and safety, so this age group was also approved for injections in order to reopen schools. Based on that success, an extended study on children aged 6 months to 11 years began in March 2021. The recruitment of volunteers for this has also been announced.

Recently, with a proposal of the Ministry of Health to buy the Pfizer vaccine for Vietnamese children, Dr. Thai said this is an effort to boost COVID-19 vaccine access for children in Vietnam and he hoped Vietnam would soon have access to this vaccine source. This is a rather long-term affair and Vietnam would still have to consider many factors before deciding whether to vaccinate children or not.

However, once a suitable vaccine is available, children will be vaccinated in the Expanded Programme on Immunisation in the form of school-based campaigns with priority given to epidemic-hit areas to ensure complete control of the epidemic.

Dr. Thai also emphasised that vaccinating children is very important, so that Vietnam does not continue to have to close schools and disrupt learning because of outbreaks, as in the past.