The Stiko recommendation to have healthy children vaccinated against the corona virus again calls critics into action. The disease is “easily survivable” for children.
Unlike specialist societies in pediatric medicine, the President of the German Medical Association, Klaus Reinhardt, was more cautious about the new Stiko recommendation for corona vaccination for five to eleven year olds. “It is a recommendation that is put into the behavior of the parents.”
Reinhardt personally would be “rather cautious” at this point, said Reinhardt on Wednesday in an interview with Radiowelt on Bayern 2. He justified this by saying that the disease “is usually easy for children to survive” and “also in the Essentially without long-term consequences, as far as one can assess that at the present time”.
Reinhardt also said that everyone had to decide for themselves. The offer is there and the Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko) recommends it. In other words, “vaccination is recommended and has a protective character”.
Individual protection in the foreground
In its current assessment, Stiko now also recommends a corona vaccination for healthy children between the ages of five and eleven – previously this only applied to children with previous illnesses and to children with people at high risk of corona in their environment. In contrast to the vaccination schedule in other groups, healthy children should initially only receive one mRNA vaccine dose, according to a statement by the committee on Tuesday.
The scientific specialist societies for paediatrics and youth medicine and the professional association of paediatricians welcomed and expressly supported the new Stiko recommendation in a joint statement. Jörg Dötsch, President of the German Society for Child and Adolescent Medicine (DGKJ), spoke to the dpa of a “good and wisely considered decision by Stiko towards the individual protection of children”.
Dötsch did not want children to be vaccinated as a measure primarily aimed at increasing the general vaccination rate. “Of course, individual protection is paramount. If many people protect themselves individually, it also protects the group as a whole, including the group of children, that’s clear.”
