MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chile starts vaccinating kids aged 6-11 at schools

4th, 5th and 8th grade kids have been wrongly vaccinated (Pic AFP)

Mass vaccination against COVID-19 of over 1.5 million Chilean schoolchildren aged 6 to 11 has kicked off Monday, it was reported. Chilean authorities have also confirmed Sinovac's drug CoronaVac is to be administered but only to those children who have parental consent.

The new vaccination phase is to last until the week of October 18, but each school will be subject to turns in accordance with plans laid out at community level through the local primary care centers.

Since taking the treatment is voluntary, parental consent is required for the administration of the drugs, but no specific formality as to how said consent needs to be expressed has been established by the Education Ministry. Therefore, every mechanism is valid, it was reported.

Meanwhile. around a dozen children from the Delfina Alarcón de Colliguay School, in the Quilpué commune, have been involved last week in a vaccination mixup at the local Post Office immunication post.

About 13 elementary school children had been inoculated with vaccines that did not correspond to their age and gender, a situation Health Service officials failed to account for and even asked the children themselves what vaccines they had been administered.

Mauricio Hidalgo, Chairman of the Parents' Committee, explained 13 children had not been given an inoculation card, and it is now unclear which drug each recipient had been administered.

The 4th, 5th and 8th grade kids had wrongly received vaccines against covid-19, or against the human papillomavirus (HPV) or the DPT drug, which is against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis.

The situation was detected after health care practicioners realized they had more than enough vaccines, after which staffers admitted they were not sure which or how many children had been affected.