Children aged 5 to 11 should only receive the vaccine if at risk of severe illness because of pre-existing conditions. Library photo: SIP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen

Children aged 5 to 11 should only receive the vaccine if at risk of severe illness because of pre-existing conditions. Library photo: SIP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen

Luxembourg’s infectious diseases council, the CSMI, has said only vulnerable children with pre-existing conditions aged 5 to 11 or those living with people at a high risk of developing severed covid-19 symptoms should get vaccinated.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) on 25 November the Pfizer/Biontech vaccine for children aged 5 to 12, following similar decision by regulatory bodies in the US and Canada.

But Luxembourg’s infectious diseases council has said the coronavirus vaccine should not be offered to all children but only those who are at a high risk of an infection or those living with someone who might develop severe symptoms.

“Although children <12 years of age currently represent a large proportion of new infections, and therefore a population at risk of viral transmission in the community, it has been well documented since the start of the pandemic that a decrease in infections in the adult population consistently led to a decrease in the incidence of infections in the paediatric population,” the CSMI said in an published this week.

In the US, for example, the regions with the lowest vaccination of the adult population also have the highest rate of children hospitalised because of a coronavirus infection, the expert council said.

Severe illness from a coronavirus infection remains rare, the council said, adding that older teenagers have a higher risk of complications. The CSMI had recommended the vaccination of children and teenagers aged 12 or over.

“As already mentioned in the opinion of the CSMI concerning the vaccination of 12 to 18-year-olds, among the paediatric ages, children between 1 and 10 years of age seem to have the least risk of hospitalisation, complication and death,” the group of more than a dozen doctors said.

“The direct benefit of vaccination against covid-19 in children aged 5 to 11 is clearly less than that of the general adult population, and also less than that of adolescents >12 years old,” the CSMI said.

The CSMI said only children aged 5 to 12 with respiratory or cardiac illnesses, immunodeficiencies, diabetes or morbid obesity, encephalitis and epilepsy, kidney disease and chromosomal abnormalities, like Down syndrome, should be offered the vaccine.

The government has yet to take a formal decision on the vaccination of children but generally relies on the advice of the CSMI.