Honduras To Vaccinate Kids From 5 to 11 Years Old In 2022

On Wednesday, Honduran Health Minister Alba Flores announced that her institution will buy 3 million Pfizer vaccines to begin the COVID-19 immunization of children between five and 11 tears of age by 2022.

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"We must continue to prepare ourselves to face the pandemic, which has already caused 10,341 deaths in our country,” Flores insisted, recalling that the Pfizer vaccine proved to have an efficacy rate of over 91 percent in clinical trials conducted with children.

"The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized the emergency use of this vaccine in children older than four years after carrying out the necessary procedures to test its effectiveness and retroactivity. Therefore, we have ample guarantees that we can safely immunize our children with it,” she stated.

So far, over 3 million Honduran citizens have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and 35 percent of the population have been fully immunized against the disease.

The vaccination campaign has significantly decreased coronavirus contagions in this Central American country, which reported a 93 percent decrease in the average daily cases in this week. 

On Wednesday, Flores urged the population to continue being vaccinated to prevent serious health complications from SARS-CoV-2 infection. However, she also stressed that vaccinated citizens should keep respecting virus-prevention protocols.

"Being vaccinated does not mean that someone cannot get infected. We must also protect population groups that cannot yet be vaccinated, such as children under four years of age. Fighting the pandemic is everyone's responsibility," Flores concluded.