17/02/2021 – 2:24 PM (GMT-4)
The National Center for Medical Genetics of Cuba has recommended that children should receive the coronavirus vaccine, warning that those who have already passed the disease are at risk of recontamination.
On Tuesday, Dr. Beatriz Marcheco Terruel, director of the center, to the group confronted with COVID-19 the study called ‘Genetic risk factors associated with the clinical severity of COVID-19 in Cuban patients’, which recommends prophylactic vaccination. of minors.
“Children under the age of 18 are silent spreaders of the disease and are more likely to show asymptomatic forms. Nearly half of the children who were infected do not have antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, which represents a potential risk of re-infection, ”the document said, quoted on the website of the Presidency of Cuba
Therefore, “it is recommended to take this fact into account when designing prevention strategies, including prophylactic vaccination,” he adds.
Since the pandemic began in Cuba in March 2020, 4,373 minors under the age of 18 have been diagnosed with COVID-19. Currently there are 736 active cases, including a one month old baby who is seriously ill
The study also showed other results, such as the lack of evidence of vertical transmission of the mother-infant disease, nor of malformations in the fetuses due to infection or therapeutic management.
In addition, it was found that elderly people and people from blood group A are more likely to develop severe forms of the disease.
Risk factors for mortality are aging and cancer or diabetes mellitus.
On the other hand, patients who showed very mild symptoms or none, show fewer antibodies, implying vulnerability to reinfection, “and necessitating a personalized vaccination strategy for this group to be considered.”
Finally, the study indicates that patients suffering from the genetic trait of variant A of the TNF-alpha gene and who are simultaneously in the eastern part of the country required more time in the hospital and 4.6 times more symptomatic , compared to the rest of the regions and to the genetic variant G of the gene itself.
The Cuban government announced this in January children between the ages of 5 and 19 would participate in a clinical trial, aimed at testing the efficacy of vaccine candidates Soberana 01 and Soberana 02 in pediatric patients.
Vicente Vérez Bencomo, general manager of the Carlos J. Finlay Vaccine Institute (IFV), said the study will give parents greater peace of mind and enable their children to attend school.
The expert took the view that it is not necessary to vaccinate persons under the age of five, as they receive many vaccines at that stage and, in general, if they are infected, it is because there has been some degree of neglect. However, he left the door open to assess that possibility, “perhaps when the pandemic ends.”
Vérez Bencomo said the trial will begin in late February and his center will conduct “rigorous evaluations” during the immunization of Cuban infants.