The Ministry of Health refines the guidelines, among them, the type of vaccine to be applied. Doctors say it is a success.
Of the 629,507 cases of COVID-19, 1,387 correspond to children between zero and nine years old. The figure is higher than that recorded in the last two weeks of December 2021, with 402 infections in these ages.
Although minors have mild symptoms, data from the Ministry of Health, as of January 16, 2022, detail that there are 47 infants interned in homes of health due to the coronavirus, on a national scale. 37 are in hospitalization and 10 in Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
Although these are the official figures, two pediatric hospitals in Guayaquil report that they have 66 children hospitalized, of which seven are in the ICU.
El hospital Roberto Gilbert detalla que tres de sus pacientes en UCI tienen menos de cinco años. Sinovac se utiliza para inmunizar a niños en China, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador y Paraguay.
Meanwhile he Hospital IESS Quito South points out that between January 1 and 10 alone, they treated 800 pediatric patients. Of them, 62% had respiratory symptoms and 27 have been hospitalized. Juan Sánchez, medical technical director, explained that although there is an increase, the fact that children are vaccinated has prevented serious symptoms from occurring.
New stage of vaccination
José Ruales, Deputy Minister of Governance and Health Surveillance, explained that there is concern about the spread of the virus in unvaccinated populations, so that since February 2022 will immunize three- and four-year-old children against COVID-19.
From the Ministry of Health it was detailed that the protocol for this population is not yet ready, but that there are already options, how to give them the Sinovac vaccine.
“The MSP analyzes, based on scientific evidence, the type of vaccine for that population, but the most likely scenario so far is that it is Sinovac”, it was pointed out from said State portfolio, which still does not have the dates on which the guidelines to vaccinate this population group will be issued.
Doctors support the measure
The president of the Ecuadorian Association of Pediatrics, Fernando Aguinaga, describes this measure as positive since “we are seeing that vaccination has allowed that despite the increase in cases, there is no greater number of seriously ill patients or deaths,” he says.
The doctor points out that for children over five years old, who have already been vaccinated, no major side effects are seen “even their symptoms after being immunized are milder than in adults,” he adds.
However, there is a “small percentage” of children who have inflammation of the airways that even need oxygen.
En Ecuador no existen datos de niños con efectos secundarios graves tras la colocación de la vacuna.
Symptoms do not change
Aguinaga says that the children symptoms are not different from those of adults, If the child has high fever, sore throat, hoarseness, dry cough, diarrhea it is important to take them to a doctor so that diagnose and determine if a PCR test, even more so if you have had contact with a positive case. (AVV)
Children population
There are more than 5 million boys and girls between 0 and 12 years old.
- 39% are between 0 to 4 years old
- 39% are between 5 to 9 years old
- 22% are between 10 to 12 years old
- Of all those under 12 years of age, 51% are men and 49% women
- 75.24% of children between 5 and 11 years old have been vaccinated with one dose against COVID-19 (Sinovac) and 56.96% with two.
- 86.91% of the population between 12 and 17 years old have received a dose against COVID-19 (Pfizer) and 73.49% two.
- In Ecuador, the number of infections increased in the population of children and adolescents, in the first weeks of January 2022.
- In the range of 0 to 9 years there were 1,387 positive cases. The figure is higher than that registered in the last two weeks of December 2021, with 402.
- In the first two weeks of 2022 there were 4,012 positives in the group between 10 and 19 years old; compared to the 1,015 reported in the last two of December 2021.
Source: INEC- MSP
“Children under five years of age who are not vaccinated are the ones who unfortunately have been complicated in the greatest number (in the face of coronavirus infections)”, Fernando Aguinaga, president of the Ecuadorian Association of Pediatrics.
Conozca dónde vacunarse
