Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School’s Department of Pediatrics recently launched a website that presents multilingual resources about COVID-19 vaccines in children and young adults.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 14.6 million children have tested positive for COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic in March 2020 and more than 1,000 have died of related complications, such as Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C).
Resources are available in English, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog, Hindi and Korean, the top five languages spoken in New Jersey, according to a press release.
Links to information on relevant topics related to COVID-19 and the COVID-19 vaccines were compiled from verified sources and have been reviewed by pediatric faculty experts. Two additional languages will be added to the site – Arabic and Gujarati, according to the press release.
Children with underlying conditions are more likely to experience severe effects of COVID-19, but even healthy children can be severely affected and children can spread COVID-19 to others. Safe and effective vaccines are available for children 6 months and older and boosters for children 5 years and above, according to the press release.
“As a pediatric rheumatologist, a pediatrician, a colleague and a mother, I feel it is vital to be involved in such an endeavor. This website will promote the importance of vaccination and make a huge difference in decreasing death due to the illness,” said Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School Professor of Pediatrics Dr. L. Nandini Moorthy.
“The website provides important, accurate information in a culturally sensitive manner in order to ensure parents and caregivers are able to make informed decisions about a child’s care,” Moorthy said.
The site can be accessed at https://go.rutgers.edu/kidscovidinfo