MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguay back to vaccinating children against COVID-19

The Uruguayan Society of Pediatrics (SUP) welcomed the resumption of vaccination against COVID-19 for children aged 5 to 13

Uruguay Thursday resumed vaccinating children aged 5 to 13 against COVID-19 after an Appellate Court reversed earlier this week Judge Alejandro Recarey's ruling halting the therapeutic procedure.

Public Health Director Miguel Asqueta said the authorities had feared “vaccination centers would be full” while highlighting the importance of vaccines, especially in children with different pathologies.

Recarey had acquiesced to a request from lawyer Maximiliano Dentone, who acted as plaintiff, but the Health Ministry (MSP) appealed the magistrate's ruling, which was in the end reversed.

“The expression is one of joy, we do not have an evaluation yet, although we think that the vaccination centers will be full,” Asqueta stressed as mobile vaccination posts were deployed offering injections against COVID-19 but also against the flu and other maladies.

The MSP is now relaunching its vaccination plan. “It is necessary to generate a process of unfreezing the vaccines,” Presidential Secretary Álvaro Delgado explained. He added that “there are vaccines that were lost” because they have expired after Recarey's July 7 decision.

Dentone argued that despite the adverse ruling, the MSP did not comply with the regulations, given that it did not do its own studies on the vaccine's components. “If you rely on the package inserts and you don't do your own study, in my opinion, it doesn't comply with the law.”

The Uruguayan Society of Pediatrics (SUP) issued a statement in which it maintains that the repealing of Recarey's sentence meant “great news for society as a whole” since children in that age group “will be able to access a safe and effective vaccine against a virus that has caused so much damage.”