Singapore — Bookings for the Pfizer-BioNTech/Comirnaty Covid-19 vaccine for children aged five to 11 years old are scheduled to start this month, following its approval for use on younger children.
Parents can take certain steps, such as explaining the process, to help prepare their kids for the vaccination.
Paediatricians have disclosed several approaches for parents with children joining the vaccination exercise said to involve more than 300,000 children.
Regarding parents talking to their children about the vaccination, Dr Elizabeth Tham said, “Children aged five and above are old enough to understand what is happening to their body and around them.
“It is thus very important to help them prepare for vaccination at least a few days in advance if their parents choose to proceed with it,” added Dr Tham, who is the consultant and head of the division of paediatric allergy, immunology and rheumatology at National University Hospital’s Khoo Teck Puat – National University Children’s Medical Institute.
She said in a Straits Times report that explaining and preparing children reduces “unpleasant or unexpected experiences”, especially during the first dose, making the second jab more difficult.
For children who are afraid of needles, parents can tell them that the needle will be smaller.
They can also remind the kids that they had gone through similar vaccinations in the past, said Dr Tham.
Distractions such as watching a video during the injection or an ice pack to numb the injection site are other suggestions.
Treat as any other vaccine
Meanwhile, parents are advised to treat the Covid-19 vaccine “as any other childhood immunisation,” said Dr Cheng Tai Kin, who runs Kinder Clinic at Parkway East Hospital.
“There’s nothing extraordinary about the injection itself. It probably will be less painful than other vaccinations if the volume given is similar to the adult Covid-19 vaccine.”
On Dec 10, the Ministry of Health said that the common side effects in children who received the vaccine were generally mild to moderate, with fewer systemic side effects than for those in the 16-25 age group.
While there were no cases of anaphylaxis seen in the study, the risk of anaphylaxis or allergy can be expected to be comparable to that observed in adolescents and young adults, MOH noted.
“While we cannot dismiss the rare risk of myocarditis or pericarditis, similar to what has been reported in adolescents and young adults, no cases of myocarditis or pericarditis were observed in the trial among the children aged 5-11 years,” the agency added.
Dr Tham explained that immediate allergic reactions such as anaphylaxis can usually be detected during the 30-minute observation period at the centre.
“As parents, we all want our children to be healthy and safe. Vaccination against Covid-19 will help minimise the chances of our children getting seriously ill if they do get infected, especially with the latest Omicron variant of concern,” said Education Minister last week.
He noted that if vaccine supplies arrive on schedule, the vaccination exercise will start from the end-December 2021 for the older children in Primary 3-5 and early 2022 for the younger group.
The BioNTech vaccine for young children consists of one-third the dosage for adults and have shown around a 90 per cent reduction in the risk of symptomatic infection based on the third phase of its clinical trial.
“As more kids get vaccinated, more learning activities such as sports and games, critical to children’s physical, cognitive and socio-emotional well-being and development, can resume,” Mr Chan added. /TISG
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