COVID-19 Child Vaccination in Cuba is not Mandatory

Havana, Sep 11 (ACN) The ongoing nationwide COVID-19 vaccination of children and adolescents in Cuba is not mandatory, said the head of the National Pediatrics Group with the Cuban Health Ministry, Lissette Lopez.

On a Cuban TV appearance, the specialist said that the children who don’t get vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 by their parents’ decision will not be prevented from attending in-person school lessons which will resume on the island over the next few months.

Lopez insisted that the Cuban Soberana COVID-19 vaccine, with authorization to be administered to children and adolescents, has proven high efficacy, while some side effects reported during the vaccination process have been mild and well identified; no deaths related to the vaccine have occurred.

Up to September 10th Cuba reported 129 thousand 129 thousand 806 pediatric cases positive to COVID-19 and 14 deaths in that population group, Lopez said and added that over 124 thousand 495 patients recovered from the disease, standing for nearly 95 percent of all positive cases.
Also on September 10, the island reported one thousand 878 new COVID-19 cases of children below 20 years of age—1 thousand 794 of them in pediatric ages, 22.3 percent of the total reported.

A breakdown of the group showed 137 babies-- below one year of age--, 52 below six months of life and five just born. Such stats unfortunately indicate that efforts to reduce the disease’s prevalence have unfortunately been unsuccessful.

The specialist noted that the kids below two years of age are not included in the ongoing vaccination campaign for now, so she called for close care of for them.

The nationwide campaign initially includes infants and adolescents between 2 and 18 years of age who have not got the disease and others suffering from pathologies under compensated condition. Not included so far are the COVID-19 convalescents, active cases, uncompensated clinical conditions and those allergic to thimerosal; but all of them will be eventually vaccinated, the specialist explained.