Cristina Sanchez Reyes
Mexico City, June 27. Mexico started vaccination against covid-19 in children under 12 years of age on Monday after several months of reluctance to inoculate this age group despite the fact that several Latin American countries have already applied the doses to children over 5 years of age for several months, which that gives hope to families to return to normality.
“The truth is that it took time (vaccination in this age group). It took a long time, it should have been immediately after the adults, and well, they did come, but very late,” Gabriela Hernández, who took her daughter Fatima to receive the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, told Efe at one of the the health centers of Mexico City.
Last week, Hugo López-Gatell, Undersecretary for Health Promotion and Prevention in the country, announced the start of vaccination in children between 5 and 11 years old.
However, the authorities of the Mexican capital specified that this week only children between 10 years and 7 months and 11 years and 11 months will be inoculated.
However, in other entities of the country the vaccines were applied to minors from the age of five.
Romeo Adalid Martínez, director of the health jurisdiction in the Venustiano Carranza mayor’s office, in the north of the city, explained that only in the “Juan Duque Estrada” health center it was expected to vaccinate between 1,000 and 2,000 children on this first day.
“But we will be pending the demand,” he clarified.
Mexico has applied more than 209 million doses against covid-19, while adding more than 5.9 million infections and 325,580 deaths, being the fifth country in the world with the highest mortality from this cause, according to the Johns Hopkins University count. .
In addition, according to independent experts, at least 1,200 minors have lost their lives due to covid-19.
The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, had refused to vaccinate minors until there was a clear guideline, in his opinion, from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Federal Commission for Protection Against Sanitary Risks (Cofepris).
GIVE TRANQUILITY TO FAMILIES
Having the first dose of the anticovid vaccine has given a break to families who feel calm, as their little ones returned to face-to-face classes, in some cases, since August 2021.
“Yes, of course, we can be calmer (…) we know that although we already have immunity, we are not exempt from being able to acquire the disease again,” said Iveth Galicia, who took her daughter Sayumi Nicté to be vaccinated.
She acknowledged that since last year the minor returned to face-to-face classes, and although in September the family was infected with the coronavirus, they all had a mild illness, but she affirmed that now she will feel more confident about sending her daughter to school.
“Because we know that the school population will also comply with the vaccination schedule,” he said.
Both Galicia and Gabriela Hernández considered that the two years of the pandemic affected not only the minors emotionally, but also at the school level, since they did not have the same performance, so the hope that vaccination will return normality to their little ones is latent. .
“Yes, (the impact) has been seen a little in the development and in the advances. In fact, the teachers, as we have had communication (…) have told us that they have a certain delay for the same reason that they do not have the coexistence with their classmates and the same routine as always”, Hernández specified. EFE
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