The Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC) has called on parents to vaccinate their young adolescents aged between 12 and 15 years, stressing the importance of vaccination for this age group as it can help preventing the spread of the COVID-19 virus to older persons, those with chronic diseases and weakened immune systems in the family, as well as contribute towards achieving community immunity.
PHCC called on community members to avoid rumors, unofficial and false news published in the media about experiencing symptoms and side-effects of vaccination, asking them instead to only obtain their information from reliable and official sources. PHCC has conducted a Qatari scientific study, the first-of-its-kind in the world, under the supervision of Dr. Mariam Abdelmalik, Managing Director of PHCC, with the participation of Dr. Sarah Rashid Musa, Community Medicine Specialist, and Dr. Ismail Dergaa, Doctor of Sports Science and Exercise Physiology. The study, which was published in "Vaccines", a prestigious international scientific and medical journal, concludes that the vaccine is important for protecting the community and limiting the transmission of the virus through children and adolescents to family members and those who are more susceptible to infection. In this context, Dr. Musa stressed the importance of vaccination for all eligible groups, as people fully immunized with Pfizer or Moderna vaccines are less likely to develop symptoms of infection, be hospitalized, or develop serious complications and transmit infection to others.
