Paediatrican criticises slow pace of vaccine rollout for children 

Professor Jonathan Hourihane said parents “should not underestimate” the risks from Covid-19 adding these can be prevented with vaccination.

A leading paediatrician has hit out at the slow pace of Covid-19 vaccine for children.

Professor Jonathan Hourihane, paediatrician with CHI at Temple Street and head of the department of paediatrics at the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland, also said parents “should not underestimate” the risks from Covid-19 adding these can be prevented with vaccination.

He said that while most children with the virus have “mild respiratory illnesses”, this is not the case for every child.

On the rollout of vaccines for children, he said: "There was going to be logistical issues getting the vaccine. But when they got the licence they said we will be ready to start in January for this group, that was at least a month too slow.” 

He said there is “no question” there are children sick now with Covid-19 who could have avoided this with earlier vaccinations.

“We have had children in intensive care with the multi-system inflammatory disorder," Prof Hourihane said.

"My view is that parents should not underestimate this disease,” he said, referring to Covid and MIS-C [Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children], a complicated condition linked to the virus. 

I don’t think there is enough awareness that we have had these cases in Ireland already.

“We’ve got these cases in our Irish hospitals. It is not common, I don’t think we have had more than 20 but that is 20 children who had a significant medical illness from a preventable illness.” 

He has also treated newborns less than six weeks old for Covid-19, some from families who were all symptomatic and often were unvaccinated.

Prof Hourihane, who previously worked at University College Cork and Cork University Hospital, said vaccination also protects a child’s “vulnerable buddies”.

“There are vulnerable children everywhere, and as a community we want to protect those children too,” he said.

“We want those children integrated into social encounters in schools and play-groups.”

Up to Monday 89,600 of the 480,000 children aged five to 11 had their first shot, with some parents saying they have safety concerns.

“Children and everybody are much more likely to get myocarditis from Covid than they are from the vaccination,” he said.

The vaccine prevents the illness, the illness is much more likely to cause myocarditis than the vaccine. That is a fact. 

He said vaccines cannot be licenced without adequate data, and have been assessed by regulatory bodies in Ireland and Europe. 

Between January 2020 and this Monday in America, there were 1,140 Covid- deaths across newborns and children up to 17 years, from a population of around 74m children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Illnesses which put a child at increased risk include obesity, diabetes, asthma, chronic lung disease, sickle cell disease, or immunosuppression.

Meanwhile, a review of international evidence around Omicron found a rapid rise in children admitted to hospitals and “the severity of the disease for children remained low with shorter lengths of stay in hospital". 

Dr Mairin Ryan said the review, published on Tuesday and carried out for the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) by the Health Information and Quality Authority, indicates “there is cautious optimism that things appear to be moving in the right direction”.