The weekly COVID-19 antigen test which is applied for students at present is likely to be required only for the unvaccinated children soon, said a senior health official.
Chair of the National Health Strategic Group on COVID-19 and Head of Infectious Diseases at Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), Dr. Abdullatif Al Khal, has said that Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) and Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MoEHE) are in consultation about COVID-19 antigen test for students and a decision will be taken soon based on indicators of the pandemic situation.
From January 30, initially the weekly antigen test for students is applied for two weeks.
“Hopefully during the third week only unvaccinated will be tested. The Ministry of Public Health is still in discussion with Ministry of Education and Higher Education on how this will happen. But hopefully soon there will be a decision announced based on the indicators,” Dr. Al Khal during a programme on QBS Radio.
Dr. Al Khal discussed about the present COVID-19 situation in the country and the vaccination drive for children between age of 5 and 11 years and he encouraged parents to vaccinate their children against COVID-19.
Dr. Al KHal explained that some parents believe that instead of getting vaccinated they should just let the children get naturally infected, then recover and develop immunity against COVID-19. “There are many parents, who believe this, but we still see many children being hospitalised with COVID-19 and for them Omicron is not a mild infection.”
Dr. Al Khal added that there is no confirmation on how long the protection from natural infections lasts. Also vaccination is important as small children are an important vehicle for transmission of the virus in the community and they are prone to the virus such as elders and those with chronic health conditions.
He also said that it is not clear about long-term consequences of COVID-19 infection in children. “Six months or a year from now or even longer we don’t know what is the effect that a child infected with COVID-19 might have. But we do know that vaccines are safe, effective and that they have been tried in older children, millions and millions of older children the world over have taken the vaccine.”
During the conversation on a question about opening schools and its impact on the COVID-19 situation Dr. Al Khal said that in Qatar the rates of infect at schools most of the time similar to the rates of infection in the community. He said that schools opened at 100 % capacity with continued commitment to applying all precautionary and preventive measures.
“Going back to in class is an important step and I think timing was very reasonable as we are exiting from the current wave, the number of hospital admissions is significantly lower than what they were at the peak. And this is coupled with the availability of the vaccine for younger children,” said Dr. Al Khal.
“We don’t anticipate that the schools will have a big impact on the spread of the virus in the community. We think what will happen in schools is will reflect what is happening in the community,” he added.
Dr. Al Khal highlighted that, health teams of the Ministry of Public Health will also conduct random checks in schools to ensure that the educational process is carried out in a safe and healthy environment.