Vaccines for children in Spain aged five to 11 to start mid-December

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.

Spanish parents are, on average, among the oldest in the first world – a typical first-time mum is about 32 or 33, with foreign mothers being typically much younger than Spaniards and skewing the average, which would be somewhere in the late 30s for national-born women; three-quarters of women aged 35 in Spain do not have children, even though the majority still say they would like to, and one in five mothers having their first child are aged over 40.

For this reason, parents whose kids have been too young for the vaccine until now would typically be aged between 40 and 50, a group with a Covid incidence of 299 per 100,000, or just under 0.3% of them.

Adults in their 30s currently have an above-average contagion rate – 254 per 100,000, or 0.254% - lower than those in their 40s but also compatible with having primary school-aged children, if they started a family at a younger age.

These two age groups also have a lower vaccination rate, along with 20-somethings – yet 94% of people over 50 have been immunised, and nearly 100% of the over-70s.

Adults in their 20s, 30s and 40s were summoned for their jabs later, as health authorities targeted age groups in descending order – but these age groups have now all been given the opportunity to do so.

And teenagers, the last ones to be contacted for a vaccine, show a very high take-up ratio – 84.6%.

A total of 87.6% of Spain's 40-somethings are fully immunised, 79.2% of those in their 20s, but the number is at its lowest among those in their 30s, at 77.5%.

Spain's health ministry has voiced concerns that, if any of these non-jabbed 20-to-50-year-olds are 'anti-vaxxers', where they have children, they may not present them for their injections – and those aged five to 11 are unlikely to be able to attend a vaccine appointment alone, without a parent.

Dr Hernández-Merino does not believe this will be a problem.

“From my experience as a consultant, parents tend to be more prudent with their children than with themselves; they might not bother to be vaccinated, but would not accept their children's running the risks of not being inoculated,” he assures.

“I think there'll be a good response to the vaccination campaign, although we won't escape those cases of parents who are totally against the vaccine and won't take their kids for their jab.”

He believes the majority of those not immunised are purely 'lax' about it, rather than consciously against it – and a recent government survey found that only 3% of respondents had no plans to be immunised, largely because of fear of serious adverse reactions, distrust of the vaccines, or believing they are not effective.

Studies have shown that the incidence of 'Covid-deniers' and 'anti-vaxxers' in Spain is considerably lower than in many other first-world nations.

The first batch of 1.3 million Pfizer vaccines specially formulated for use in children under 12 are set to arrive in Spain on December 13, and another two million in January, or enough for all kids of this age to have their first dose of two.