Infectious Disease Specialist and advisor to the COVID-19 task force, Dr. Jerrol Thompson, says COVID-19 positive cases among children in St. Vincent and the Grenadines is of great concern.
“It is of great concern, especially as we always aspire to have persons go back to school, and I’m not talking about CSEC and doing CAPE exams, I’m talking about people going back to school,” he said.
Dr. Thompson pointed out that the Indian variant of COVID-19 has been proven to be more dangerous than others to young individuals.
He made mention of studies carried out by manufacturers of vaccines that have indicated that the vaccines are suitable for use by children as young as 12 years old.
Thompson said that SVG is not currently at the stage where COVID-19 vaccinations for children have been permitted by the authorities as yet, stating that the focus currently is on the vaccination of adults.
On June 1 Chief Medical Officer Simone Keizer Beache said that given the percentage of those 18 years and younger contracting COVID-19 in St Vincent, health officials have started to look to vaccines to control the spread among the young population.
At that time the country had recorded 552 cases in f children 18 years and younger, with the lowest at one point being a 1-month-old baby.
The Food and Drug Administration lowered the age that people can receive Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine in the United States to 12 — a move that is expected to make millions of more shots available.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was authorized for use in people ages 16 and up in December. The FDA has now amended the authorization to include children ages 12 to 15.
A peak in pediatric cases has taken place since April 2021 in St Vincent.
