Immuniser les enfants en toute confiance
(disponible uniquement en anglais)
Children’s Healthcare Canada in partnership with Solutions for Kids in Pain (SKIP) is leading a Public Health Agency of Canada funded project, Immunizing Children with Confidence, that aims to support an evidence-based information and awareness building campaign to ensure the maximum number of children eligible for the COVID vaccine will be inoculated. Immunizing Children with Confidence seeks to address an identified knowledge gap by developing and sharing resources with vaccine communicators, vaccine providers, and families.
This initiative will:
Advance the awareness of, knowledge, and resources available to front-line child and youth healthcare providers responsible for vaccination, in order to ensure they can safely and confidently vaccinate children, including those who have increased risks associated to COVID and other vaccine-preventable infectious diseases (e.g., disabilities, medical complexity, acute illnesses).
Build the capacity (and confidence) of healthcare providers as vaccinators and vaccination promoters.
Share credible current knowledge with Children’s Healthcare Canada’s family partners to inform their vaccination decisions for their child(ren).
Current State
As of September 2022, safe and effective COVID vaccines have been approved in Canada for children and youth 6 months and older. The National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI, 2021) recommends that (with very few exceptions) a complete series of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine should be offered to those 5 years of age and older and the Moderna Spikevax 25 microgram COVID-19 vaccine may be offered to children 6 months- 5 years.
Roughly 3,100 children participated in the 5-year-old to11 year old trials for Pfizer-BioNTech. NACI has reviewed this data and is recommending an 8-week dose interval for youth 5-11. Roughly 6,400 children participated in the 6 months to 5-year-old trials for Moderna. No safety signals were identified. Myocarditis rates were less than 1 per million in the 5 to11 age group based on real world data for 1st doses in males and females. Myocarditis and other ultra-rare events were not observed in the clinical trials, but health experts expect them to be as low as in the 5-11 age group. Health Canada monitors vaccine adverse effects very closely. Health Canada also has a rigorous approval process for any new vaccines to ensure it is safe and effective. Canadian pediatric communities welcome an approved vaccination for children, especially for those who are at increased risk due to COVID and other vaccine-preventable infectious diseases (e.g., children with disabilities, medical complexity, acute illness).
There is therefore a discreet window of opportunity Children’s Healthcare Canada, working in partnership with others, to support an evidence-based information and awareness building campaign to ensure the maximum number of children eligible for the COVID vaccine will be inoculated. Immunizing Children with Confidence seeks to address this gap by developing and sharing resources with vaccine communicators, vaccine providers, and families.
We have curated resources from our own subject matter experts, national child health organizations, provincial, territorial and federal governments, other national not-for-profits.
Many of these resources were developed in response to the COVID -19 pandemic but are applicable to routine immunizations, needle pokes, and interventions.
Tools and Resources
