Home » Health » OVERVIEW. Third of children received first shot: Antwerp province is the leader in vaccination for 5- to 11-year-olds

OVERVIEW. Third of children received first shot: Antwerp province is the leader in vaccination for 5- to 11-year-olds

The province of Antwerp is one of the better students in the Flemish class when it comes to childhood vaccination. © BELGIAN

Antwerp

More than a third of all 5- to 11-year-olds in the province of Antwerp have been vaccinated or have made an appointment. This is evident from a survey of Gazette of Antwerp at the various primary care zones. There are, however, regional differences.

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About 135,000 children in the province of Antwerp between the ages of 5 and 11 are eligible to be vaccinated against the corona virus. All but a very small minority have received an invitation. More than a third of the children have now also had their first injection. This is evident from a survey of Gazette of Antwerp at the primary care zones (ELZs).

This makes the province of Antwerp one of the better students in the class in Flanders. Almost all children were invited there too (99.3%), but the vaccination percentage remains at 17% for the time being.

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“We are now at almost 40%, which means the vaccination campaign has started smoothly,” says Sarah Verherstraeten of ELZ Baldemore (Balen-Dessel-Mol-Retie region). “In contrast to the vaccinations for adults and young people from the age of 12, we do not propose a date and time in advance, but parents can schedule their injection time themselves: on Wednesday afternoon or Saturday. The only stumbling block is cancellations due to a corona infection or imposed quarantine.”

They also notice this in ELZ Klein-Brabant. “Some appointments are now being canceled due to infections and quarantines,” says Leen Lejon, responsible for the vaccination center Klein-Brabant. “These people indicate that they want to come later. As a result, everything is now shifting for a few weeks.”

The omikron variant therefore seems to delay the vaccination campaign for children. This is also confirmed by Joris Moonens, spokesperson for the Agency for Care and Health. In the whole of Flanders, there are approximately 32,000 passed appointments. “But there may also be a lot of parents who have not decided yet and therefore want to wait a little longer,” he says. “We had in any case taken into account that the vaccination rate would be lower in that age category. We felt that there are more doubts about that.”

A little bite in the Antwerp Zoo.

A little bite in the Antwerp Zoo. © BELGIAN

Vaccine prevents MIS-C

However, those doubts seem to be fading away. This is what Daan Van Brusselen, pediatric infectiologist at GZA Hospitals, is experiencing. “We clearly have more doubts for our children than for ourselves,” says Van Brusselen. “But I think we have also been able to remove a lot of them in the meantime. We feel that in practice. We have also learned a lot in the last few weeks. If children are vaccinated, the transmission of the virus will generally decrease. We already knew that. But now we also know that MIS-C, the syndrome that can occur in children after a corona infection, can be prevented by vaccination. The chance of MIS-C is small, but when we see it it is often serious. That can be an extra motivation to have children vaccinated anyway. In addition, we have seen in New York that children who receive the vaccine are up to 70% less likely to contract the virus. That percentage is even higher for hospitalizations.”

© EPA-EFE

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