COVID vaccines will be given to children in Spain aged between five and 11 inclusive starting from the second week in December, health authorities have revealed.
They say their biggest challenge at this point will be convincing adults who refuse to be immunised to go ahead and have their jabs, and that where they are parents or guardians, to persuade them of the need to inoculate their kids.
That said, Dr Ángel Hernández-Merino, an expert from the Spanish Paediatrics Association says those adults who are the most reticent – or the most lax – about having vaccines themselves rarely fail to have their children jabbed.
It is not yet clear whether all regional governments in Spain will follow the same strategy, and whether this will involve GP appointments, mass vaccination in the same way as for adults this year, or whether children will have their injections at school – although as the winter term ends about a week before Christmas, it is likely that only the younger age groups would be vaccinated between classes.
Secretary of State for Health, Silvia Calzón, said the incidence of Covid contagion is highest among the non-vaccinated – adults who have not been immunised have a nine times greater mortality risk if they catch the condition, according to the medical community – and that the main age group currently affected by Covid are those who have children in primary school.
Over nine in 10 adults and children aged 12 and over in Spain have been fully immunised, with the over-70s having had a third injection and the 60-69 age group now starting to be summoned for their own boosters, with a view to completing these before Christmas.
But kids who, until now, have been considered too young for the vaccine until conclusive evidence was obtained to show it would be effective and safe for them, are more likely to pass Covid to their parents if they catch it, and their parents are more likely to be very ill with it, if they themselves are not immunised.
The national incidence of Covid at present is 248 per 100,000 inhabitants (0.248% of the population), rising to 412 (0.412%) among children under 12 – as they have not been vaccinated yet – although the trend seems to be that the very young are less frequently seriously ill with the condition.
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