THE Federal Government and the Special Committee on COVID-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV) should reverse their decision to withhold the immunisation of children between the ages of 12 to 17 in Malaysia, said Bandar Kuching MP Dr Kelvin Yii.
In an opinion piece sighted on MalaysiaKini, Yii reasoned that the benefit of vaccination highly outweighs the risks.
This is especially given the emergence of more transmissible variants that are being reported across the globe, including the Delta, Lambda and Delta Plus variants.
He said vaccinating children 12 to 17 years old was necessary because schools would reopen soon, and because of Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s recent announcement on relaxing travel restrictions for parents wanting to meet their children aged below 18 years old.
“While these parents may be vaccinated, they are travelling back to meet their children who are unvaccinated, which puts them at risk not only to get the disease, but also for their children to be a conduit to spread the disease to others, and even possibly develop new variants,” he opined.
Yii said that data has indicated that children and particularly adolescents can play a significant part in COVID-19 transmission, especially to high-risk groups including the elderly and those with comorbidities.
As of June 1, about 0.52% (or 15 of the 2,867 COVID-19 deaths reported in Malaysia) occurred among children aged below 18 years old.
“While I do understand the concern of side effects especially myocarditis (heart inflammation) reported especially in the USA, but such incidents are very small, 40 cases per one million doses of the Pfizer vaccine that was administered to males aged 12 to 29,” Yii explained.
On top of that, young people who develop myocarditis from the mRNA vaccine mostly experience a mild illness and virtually all of them recover spontaneously or with minimal treatment. No deaths have thus far been reported.
According to Yii, the risk of boys aged 12 to 17 years old developing myocarditis and pericarditis from COVID-19 is estimated to occur at 876 per million, which is 13 times more than the risk of them developing it from the mRNA vaccines (67 per million).
For girls aged 12 to 17 years old, the risk of developing myocarditis and pericarditis from primary COVID-19 infection is 213 per million. This is 24-fold the risk of getting it from the mRNA vaccines (nine per million).
In addition to mRNA vaccines, other vaccines including Sinopharm and Sinovac have also been tested in young people over the age of 12.
“Several countries, including the United States, Israel and China are now offering vaccines to this age group.
“The vaccines seem to be safe in adolescents, and some companies have moved on to carrying out clinical trials in children as young as six months old, while in the US, vaccines for those under 12 might be available later this year,” he said.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) in a statement recently said that schools in Malaysia will reopen in stages for face-to-face classes from Sept 1.
This applies to all government schools, government-aided schools, private schools and educational institutions registered with MOE.
However, this ruling is subject to change depending on the latest risk assessments by the Health Ministry and National Security Council. – Aug 11, 2021
