By Robina Asido

The government is set to start vaccinating minors aged 12 to 17 on October 15, a Department of Health (DOH) official said Wednesday.

This was announced by the National Vaccination Operation Center Chairman and Health Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje during the ''Laging Handa'' public briefing.

"Our target is to start the vaccination on October 15. We will start in the National Capital Region, because the coverage of their vaccination is not good, especially their A2 (senior citizen), their fully vaccinated A2, who are the most vulnerable, are now more than 50 percent," she said.

Cabotaje explained that the vaccination of minors in other regions will start after a two-week test run.

"After two weeks, this is what we call the test run. We will bring it to other regions. We will start with the vaccination of minors with comorbidities, or medical complexity, those who have problems with their heart , respiratory, kidney and others," she said.

Cabotaje also mentioned that the NVOC is still discussing initially do the vaccination within the hospital to see possible reactions.

"Like when we started the vaccination of COVID-19, we started it within the COVID Referral Hospital. We checked what should be monitored, which we called simulation. And then, we expanded it to other hospitals," she said.

Cabotaje expressed hope that the guidelines for the vaccination will be released next week.

"The National Vaccines Operation Center is presently drafting the guidelines for the vaccination of 12 to 17 years old and we will give this to the vaccine cluster and to the DOH and we hope to release these operational guidelines by next week," she said.

Cabotaje said so far only Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines were given Emergency Use Authorization of the Food and Drug Administration to be used for vaccinating minors.

She also noted that aside from the consent of the parents or guardians of the minors, a medical health expert would also like to require the assent of the child to be vaccinated.

"The guardian or parent needs to provide informed consent and the vaccine recipient, the children, should also give assent to the vaccination to show that they are aware and agree to receive and is not forced by their parents to get vaccinated," she added. DMS