Dutch Health Council scraps advice to vaccinate healthy children against Covid

The Dutch Health Council dropped its advice to vaccinate healthy children between the ages of 5 and 11 against Covid-19. From now on, the Dutch health services should only invite children who have other medical conditions that make Covid-19 more dangerous to them to get vaccinated, the Health Council said on Tuesday.

Covid-19 vaccinations became available for kids aged 5 to 11 in December 2021. The Health Council advised parents to vaccinate their kids because the vaccine protects against MIS-C, a rare condition children can contract when they first become infected with the coronavirus. Since then, about 3 percent of kids in that age group got vaccinated.

The vast majority of children in the Netherlands have now had a coronavirus infection at least once, the Health Council now said. And the risk of MIS-C is almost non-existent at a second or subsequent infection. The risk of MIS–C is also smaller with the currently dominant Omicron variant of the coronavirus.

The Health Council, therefore, considers the usefulness of vaccinated children in this age group “limited.”