Par­ents and guardians are be­ing urged to get their chil­dren vac­ci­nat­ed against the COVID-19 virus.

Pae­di­atric Emer­gency Spe­cial­ist and Re­gion­al Emer­gency Co­or­di­na­tor for the North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty Dr Joanne Paul made the call on Sat­ur­day at the Min­istry of Health's COVID-19 me­dia con­fer­ence.

Paul dis­closed that side-ef­fects of the Pfiz­er COVID-19 vac­cine in chil­dren were most­ly anx­i­ety-re­lat­ed such as stom­ach aches and feel­ing faint and that they went away quick­ly.

She said se­ri­ous side ef­fects of the vac­cine such as my­ocardi­tis and peri­cardi­tis in chil­dren were rare.

Paul elab­o­rat­ed that in terms of num­bers side-ef­fects for the Pfiz­er vac­cine was usu­al­ly about one to two per mil­lion for chil­dren be­tween 12 to 18 years.

She ex­plained what this meant for the pop­u­la­tion of chil­dren in T&T to be vac­ci­nat­ed was around one fifth a case that might be my­ocardi­tis or peri­cardi­tis, two sep­a­rate ma­jor side-ef­fects.

Paul said "The re­al­i­ty was in terms of re­al sig­nif­i­cant my­ocardi­tis or peri­cardi­tis we have none. What we found was most of the side ef­fects have been anx­i­ety-re­lat­ed or anx­i­ety-as­so­ci­at­ed. Chil­dren es­pe­cial­ly in that age group might be so anx­ious; they might have chest pains, stom­ach ir­ri­ta­tion or feel faint. Once their anx­i­ety was re­solved and they were re­as­sured, their symp­toms went away."

She said the ma­jor­i­ty of chil­dren with COVID-19 were asymp­to­matic, how­ev­er, two per cent of those in­fect­ed with the virus had se­vere in­fec­tions which need­ed hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion.

Chief Medical Officer Dr Roshan Parasram

ANISTO ALVES

Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram al­so urged par­ents to get their chil­dren vac­ci­nat­ed to pro­tect them from the virus as the ef­fi­ca­cy rate for the Pfiz­er COVID-19 vac­cine in chil­dren had been very good at al­most 100 per cent.

Paras­ram stat­ed that 11 chil­dren in Ja­maica died from COVID-19 and said T&T should not have to reach that stage with vac­cines read­i­ly avail­able to pre­vent deaths and se­ri­ous ill­ness.

Coun­ty Med­ical Of­fi­cer of Health for Ca­roni Dr Jea­nine St Bernard al­so ad­vo­cat­ed for chil­dren to re­ceive the COVID-19 vac­ci­na­tion for a re­turn to a bal­anced life and healthy life.

She gave her ex­pe­ri­ence in tak­ing her chil­dren for the COVID-19 vac­cine, that they were com­fort­able with the first dose ad­min­is­tered at COSTAATT in El Do­ra­do, and the sec­ond dose at the Waller­field Dri­ve Through and on­ly ex­pe­ri­enced pain at the in­jec­tion site.

T&T records 55 con­firmed cas­es of MIS-C

Mean­while, Paul con­firmed that to date, there have been 55 con­firmed cas­es of Mul­ti­sys­tem In­flam­ma­to­ry Syn­drome In Chil­dren (MIS-C) in T&T due to COVID-19.

Ac­cord­ing to the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion (CDC), MIS-C is a rare but se­ri­ous con­di­tion as­so­ci­at­ed with COVID-19 in which dif­fer­ent body parts be­come in­flamed, in­clud­ing the heart, lungs, kid­neys, brain, skin, eyes, or gas­troin­testi­nal or­gans.

"We've had 55 con­firmed cas­es of MIS-C up to this date from April last year to now. In­ter­est­ing enough though, we have had the most in the Caribbean. We're about main­ly four to five times per capi­ta more than any Caribbean coun­try.

"We're not sure why, but we know we've been hav­ing them con­firmed, treat­ed and there been no cas­es, no deaths so far from MIS-C in Trinidad at all, which has been great."