Spain and other European countries They began this Wednesday to vaccinate the children in front of coronavirus, seeking to control the resurgence of the pandemic and to keep schools open due to the expansion of the omicron variant, which in January could dominate the region.
Denmark, Austria, Greece, Hungary and several German regions started immunization of children under 12 years of age, the age group currently most affected by infections, for which the European drug agency authorized the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at the end of November.
This new stage of vaccination opens when the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, warned this Wednesday before the European Parliament that the contagious omicron could be “the new dominant variant in Europe in mid-January. “
With 66.6% of the community population immunized, the European leader encouraged to continue increasing this proportion. “The price we will pay if people are not vaccinated will continue to increase,” affecting the Christmas holidays or closing of schools and other activities, he said.
According to a survey, 74% of Spanish parents with children of those ages want to vaccinate them. AP Photo
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Minorities
Anyway, the vaccine has fierce opponents in several countries Europeans, including Germany, where the police intervened in Dresden (Saxony), stronghold of the anti-restriction movement and the extreme right, after death threats made on Telegram against the regional minister-president, Michael Kretschmer.
Before Parliament, the new German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said his country will “defend itself” against an anti-vaccine “extremist minority”.
Police suspect that some members of the group that made the threats “may be in possession of real weapons and crossbows.”
Spain, one of the countries with the highest vaccination rates in Europe and where anti-vaccines are a very minority, began immunizing children between the ages of 5 and 11 in schools, vaccination centers and hospitals, depending on the regions.
The president of the government, Pedro Sánchez, said he hopes that the application of vaccines to children will make his country “an example to the world.”
The government launched a television ad to promote immunization, in which some children say that it is their turn to get the prod “to hug without limits”, “to help end the virus” and “to protect the elderly.”
According to a survey, 74% of Spanish parents with children of those ages want to vaccinate them.
In Greece, Education Minister Niki Kerameus was among the first to take his son to hospital to get vaccinated, according to state television ERT. The country, for now, has awarded more than 30,000 appointments for children.
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France only approved vaccination in children at risk to develop a serious illness, but the government is considering expanding it to all voluntarily.
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Other countries like Italy, Poland, Portugal or the Czech Republic, will launch similar campaigns in the coming days.
Switzerland has a green light from its regulator, but the campaign probably won’t start until January. What’s more, Belgium Y United Kingdom they await indications from their regulatory bodies.
The launch of these campaigns comes a day after the alert launched by the World Health Organization about the unprecedented spread of omicron, notified already in almost 80 countries but probably present in many more.
Of the last to announce cases were Kenya and Ecuador, which detected the new variant in a 48-year-old man who had been in South Africa, said Health Minister Ximena Garzón.
Vaccination of those under twelve years of age is already underway in several countries of the world such as U.S, Bolivia The Chile, in the latter case with children up to 3 years of age.
In the United States, the first large country to extend vaccination to children, more than five million children have been immunized.
Since the end of 2019, the pandemic has left at least 5,319,316 deaths in the worldAccording to an AFP balance from official sources at noon on Wednesday.
With many countries embarking on administering a third dose of the vaccine to counter this new wave, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) indicated on Wednesday that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine could be used as a booster in those over 18 years of age.
Source: AFP
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