Tamariki will become Covid casualties if vaccine is not prioritised for them, Māori Council warns

Wednesday, 27 October 2021

Chris Hipkins and Dr Ashley Bloomfield say Medsafe is looking at the data on the Pfizer vaccine for 5-11-year-olds, but they haven't received the formal application from Pfizer just yet.

Vaccinate tamariki before introducing the traffic light system or Māori children will be the casualties, the New Zealand Māori Council says.

The council has called for the Government to put a hold on its plans to lift the current alert level system in favour of the traffic light system until the paediatric vaccine has been delivered to 5 to 11-year-olds and Māori vaccination rates catch up to the general population’s.

New Zealand Māori Council co-chair and South Auckland healthcare provider George Ngatai said the council had written to Associate Health Minister (Māori Health) Peeni Henare urging him to protect their children as schools begin to reopen across Auckland and the Delta variant spreads across the motu.

New Zealand Māori Council co-chair George Ngatai says if Delta spreads among tamariki it will cause lifelong effects.

The Māori Council was concerned about long Covid in children, he said, particularly in Māori children who have a higher proportion of diseases such as rheumatic fever. Although long Covid probably does occur in children, studies show it is less common than in adults.

**READ MORE:

Covid Response Minister Chris Hipkins says the Government is awaiting approval from regulators before it can consider moving forward with the Pfizer vaccine for children.

* Covid-19: MoH in talks with Pfizer over vaccine use in children aged 5-12

* Covid-19: No level 4 'circuit breaker' for Auckland, despite 'desperate need'

* Children aged 5 to 11 could be in line for Covid-19 vaccine, politicians say

On Wednesday, Covid Response Minister Chris Hipkins said that advice to the United States Food and Drug Administration in favour of authorising emergency use of the Pfizer vaccine for children was the first hurdle to get past before it could be considered by New Zealand.

New Zealand Māori Council māngai Tākuta Ferris says Government needs to boost resources to Māori health providers and get out of their way.

Data from Pfizer-BioNTech indicated the vaccine was more than 90 per cent effective at preventing symptomatic illness among tamariki.

In a preliminary analysis last week, FDA reviewers said the protection the vaccine gave would “clearly outweigh” the risk of a very rare side-effect in almost all scenarios of the pandemic. The FDA will now decide whether to take that advice on board and authorise its use in younger children.

The vaccine reviewed by the advisers was a paediatric version of the jab currently being given to New Zealanders aged 12 and older.

If you haven’t had a Covid-19 jab yet, you may be worried about side effects in the long term.

Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said Medsafe would be ready to check over an application in New Zealand once the information was delivered.

“We are expecting all the information through from Pfizer in the first two weeks of November and our Medsafe colleagues are standing ready to consider all that.”

But plans following its approval needed to be organised now and Māori leaders must be at the table preparing the roll-out, New Zealand Māori Council māngai, or member, Tākuta Ferris said.

More than 17 per cent of cases reported in the Delta outbreak have been children aged 11 and under, according to Ministry of Health statistics.

They were sitting ducks, Ferris said.

With 25.5 per cent of the Māori population under 12, it was vital they were vaccinated before returning to school, with a focus on putting Māori first to achieve equity, Ferris said.

“We have half of the new cases of Covid.”

Dr Rhys Jones says the paediatric vaccine will give the Government a chance to put equity at the centre of that roll-out, by prioritising Māori children first.

The exponential rise in youth cases in the United Kingdom was a map for how Delta would take over Aotearoa, he said.

Tamariki would mix in kura, from where the virus would then get carried back to whānau at home and spread throughout communities and, if Māori did not have equal vaccination rates to the general population, it would be Māori who suffered in the fallout of the virus, Ferris said.

“We are really down to the wire. The best thing we can do as a people is mobilise our families into action. We need to get our people vaccinated and we need to move our whānau into action.”

Ferris said the $120 million that had been distributed to boost Māori vaccinations needed to be put with Māori providers who could work whānau by whānau to ease their vaccine concerns.

It would take 100 days for Medsafe to approve the vaccine, he said, but Māori could not wait until next year to have everything ready for roll-out.

“We need to roll out the vaccine through te ao Māori. We have the manpower and the infrastructure to do it, we just need to be organised early.”

University of Auckland senior health lecturer Dr Rhys Jones said the youth vaccine was a chance for the Government to put equity at the centre of this roll-out.

Under-11s made up a large portion of the Māori population and prioritising this group would help increase equitable health outcomes for tangata whenua, Jones said.

“We have only been put in that position because of the way the vaccine roll-out has been done. It effectively put Māori at the back of the queue.

“It is a chance to fix up some of the mistakes that were made but it is just highlighting that equity needed to be designed in from day one.”