MOH counters claims by group of doctors urging delay in jabs for young

Her 15-year-old son, Spencer, had received his first Pfizer-BioNTech jab two weeks ago.

So when home tutor Sharon Loi, 43, read an open letter by a group of doctors calling for the suspension of vaccinations for young people here, she was naturally concerned. She even considered postponing her son's second jab on July 31.

But her fears were allayed after Singapore's Expert Committee on Covid-19 Vaccination and a senior infectious diseases specialist from the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) called out the one-sided claims in the open letter addressed to Associate Professor Benjamin Ong, chairman of the committee .

REVISED STATEMENT

In a revised statement issued yesterday, the Ministry of Health (MOH), which oversees the committee, said that news reports about a child's death in the United States did not state heart failure as a cause, as alleged in the letter.

"The matter is still under investigation by the US authorities," said MOH.

The open letter was posted on Facebook last Saturday by Dr Kho Kwang Po.

It called for a pause in Singapore's vaccination exercise for young people here following the death of a 13-year-old American boy three days after his second dose of a Covid-19 vaccine in the US.

The letter asked that the authorities here wait until the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and organisations elsewhere produced more robust and convincing data on the case.

It was signed by Dr Kho; Dr Wong Wui Min, a cardiologist and heart specialist at W.M. Wong Cardiac and Medical Clinic in Gleneagles Hospital; Dr A.M. Chia; Dr L.W. Ping; and Dr I.W. Yang.

Following the letter, a group of parents signed a petition last Saturday calling for the suspension of vaccinations for individuals under 30.

Responding to the letter yesterday, MOH said that the letter writers presented a one-sided report on presentations to the Advisory Committee on Immunisation Practices of the CDC.

MOH said the writers failed to mention that there was available data to indicate that "patients generally recover from symptoms and do well".

They also failed to mention that subsequent discussions at the same meeting went on to support the vaccination of adolescents because the benefits outweighed the risks, MOH added.

"The risk of acquiring Covid-19 and suffering damaging illness outweigh the risk of vaccination," added MOH.

Of the four million children in the US infected with Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been about 380 reported deaths in the 12-17 age group.

Covid-19 in the youth can also result in multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children and other prolonged disabilities.

Said MOH: "In the face of a more transmissible Delta variant associated with more severe Covid-19, it is imperative that we protect our children from severe Covid-19 and its complications.

"This will have to mean full vaccination of two doses, as studies showed that one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine confers 33 per cent protection against the Delta variant."

In a Facebook post yesterday, Associate Professor David Lye from the NCID called the open letter "misleading" and said it was "misinforming the public".

"They (did not) tell you what may happen if Delta variant sweeps through our children in massive outbreaks and overwhelms our hospitals," he wrote, citing a peer-reviewed study that provided an analysis of 129 studies from 31 countries involving more than 10,000 children who were diagnosed with the disease. Of these, 22.9 per cent were in intensive care and 3.6 per cent of them died.

Said Prof Lye: "There are very few effective treatments for children with Covid-19, unlike for adults.

"Vaccination is the main protection for our kids."

SMALL RISK

The expert committee had on Sunday reiterated that there is a small risk of myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) and pericarditis (inflammation of the lining of the heart) associated with mRNA vaccines.

Four of the six cases of myocarditis and pericarditis among people vaccinated here involved men aged between 18 and 30.

All four reported symptoms of heart inflammation within a few days of receiving their second dose of the vaccines and have since recovered.

Ms Loi told The New Paper yesterday: "After seeing what the MOH had to say, I feel much more relieved and I am confident about my son getting his second dose as planned."