Cuba begins vaccinating two-year-olds against Covid-19

This is the country vaccinating two-year-olds, as other nations begin giving Covid-19 jabs to first graders and kids as young as three.

Cuba is vaccinating children as young as two, China and the United Arab Emirates are giving three-year-olds the jab and Chile and Cambodia are immunising children aged six and older.

While debate rages around the world about children developing natural immunity to Covid-19 by actually contracting it, some nations are vaccinating kids and getting their schools back to face-to-face learning.

Cuba announced earlier this week it would start vaccinating children as young as two against coronavirus immediately.

It will be the first in the world to vaccinate children that young, with nations including Australia, the US and many in Europe only approving the vaccine for kids as young as 12.

The United Arab Emirates and China have kicked off vaccination programs for kids as young as three.

Chile has started vaccinating children aged six and older, as has Cambodia, starting on Friday.

According to the BBC, China and Chile approved the use of the Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine for young children.

The moves by a handful of countries leave most nations – who are only starting to vaccinate children aged 12 to 17 – lagging behind.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) only recommend children aged 12 and above get the Pfizer vaccine.

Pfizer is the only Covid-19 vaccine so far approved by the WHO for adolescents 17 and younger.

Both health bodies instead recommend masking, social distancing and hygiene measures for students returning to school.

The CDC’s Michael Thigpen said no Covid-19 vaccines were yet approved for US children under 12.

Pedro Montano holds his daughter Roxana, 3, as she is inoculated against Covid-19 in Cuba, the first nation to give the jab to kids as young as 2. Picture: Adalberto Roque/ AFP

A young girl receives a Covid shot in Cambodia which this week will start immunising children from the age of six. Picture: Tang Chhin/AFP

A young child undergoes a nucleic acid test for Covid-19 in Putian City, China, which will vaccinate children from the age of three. Picture: CNS/AFP

“Studies are ongoing in the United States to determine whether Covid-19 vaccines are safe and effective in younger age groups,” he said.

A recent report from Australia’s National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance found 98 per cent of children who contracted Covid in the recent Delta wave were asymptomatic or only had mild symptoms.

“Only around 2 per cent will require hospitalisation and for many of those 2 per cent, it’s for monitoring and social care,” Sydney Children’s Hospital Westmead specialist Professor Kristine Macartney said.

A UK professor has argued children could develop better immunity from actually contracting coronavirus, and described inoculating children as “pointless” and “a bad use of vaccine”.

“Children are at very, very low risk of severe infection,” Professor David Livermore, a microbiologist at the University of East Anglia, told MailOnline.

“We’d really be better off just building better immunity to this virus (through infection) as we do to a score of other circulating viruses.

“Vaccinating children has been justified not to protect children from severe infection, but so schools can be kept open.

“This is based on a false premise. Schools here should not have been closed at all.”

Covid-19 test on a child in Xiamen, in Fujian province in China, one of a handful of nations starting to vaccinate very young children. Picture: STR/AFP

However the move to vaccinating younger children in some countries may prove an irresistible trend for others wanting their kids back in classrooms, kindergartens and day care centres.

Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has provisionally approved the use of the Comirnaty (Pfizer) and Spikevax (Moderna) vaccines for people 12 years and older.

But with under-12s now increasingly catching Covid, parents are asking – how sick are the young getting, and when can we vaccinate them?

From January 1 to August 1 this year, 2.5 per cent of children aged up to nine and 2.9 per cent children and teenagers aged 10-19 who contracted Covid were hospitalised, the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance reported.

This compares with a hospitalisation rate of 7.7 per cent of young adults aged 20-29, with the rates continuing to increase with age.

For 30-39-year-olds it is 8.7 per cent, 40-49-year-olds it is 12.3 per cent, and 19.3 per cent for 50-59-year-olds.

Cases are on the rise among children in New South Wales, but to date this hasn’t been accompanied by a large increase in paediatric hospitalisations.

Recent data show increased rates of hospitalisation among children in the US with Covid-19 compared to last year, alongside rising infections with the Delta variant.

Students clean the yard at a secondary school in Phnom Penh, Cambodia ahead of a return to class as the nation immunises kids as young as six. Picture: Cindy Liu/Getty Images

But even though the rate has gone up, it remains low. In children and adolescents aged 17 and under the rate is 0.38 per 100,000 people, well below the rate in adults aged 60-69 (5.63 per 100,000) and those over 70 (8.07 per 100,000).

However, some kids who have chronic medical conditions are at a higher risk of getting really sick from Covid, which is why Australia’s vaccine advisory body ATAGI has listed them as a priority group.

Cambodia reported this week it was starting to immunise its six to 11-year-old children after gaining access to Chinese-made Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines.

Cambodia has also received doses of the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.

This latest phase of Cambodia’s inoculation drive is in order to reopen primary schools in the country.

Prime Minister Hun Sen announced the diktat on his Facebook page, saying the decision was based on “studies in many countries”.

The primary school vaccination drive will include 1.8 million children.

Cuban nurse Xiomara Rodriguez shows a vial of the Cuban Soberana 2 vaccine as the country starts immunising kids as young as two. Picture: Joaquin Hernandez/AFP

Cambodia was already vaccinating children aged 12 to 17, with 87 per cent of children in this age bracket vaccinated as of September 14.

The high vaccination rate among teenagers has led the government to reopen private and public secondary schools, grade 7 to 12, after 20 months of on-and-off classroom lessons.

Li Ailan, who heads the WHO in Cambodia, said that children with underlying conditions were at increased risk of severe illness from Covid-19, Vodenglish.news reported.

But in general, children were far less likely to get seriously ill.

“WHO does not recommend that vaccinations be used as a prerequisite for reopening schools safely and gradually. It is vital to continue to implement public health and social measures,” she said.

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