Vaccinating children will not end COVID-19, focus should remain on adult immunisation: ICMR’s Chief Scientist

New Delhi : The recommendation by the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) under India’s drug regulatory authority to allow a COVID-19 jab for immunisation in children against Coronavirus has divided the scientific community as many deem it unnecessary.

A top scientist at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), while speaking to UNI, said that COVID-19 vaccination in children is not necessary and should not become a public health response to the Coronavirus led pandemic, and suggested to continue focus on full immunisation of adult population instead.

“It will be a regulatory decision (approval to COVID-19 vaccines for children) but considering the public health response, vulnerable groups in adults should remain a priority in COVID-19 immunisation. The children will not contribute to the pandemic in any large way, neither vaccinating them will end the COVID-19,” Dr Samiran Panda, Chief Scientist and Head of Epidemiology at ICMR, said.

“We should not see the possibility of any vaccine receiving approval for immunisation to children against the COVID-19 as a final nail to the coffin. Children are not driving the pandemic, it’s being driven by the behaviour of adults. So vaccination and other measures of COVID appropriate behaviour should be followed by adults.

“The focus should remain on full vaccination of the vulnerable groups in adult population like those with old age or having comorbid conditions, at the earliest,” he added.

However, the possibility of children vaccination has elicited a sentiment of confidence among the parents who are still hesitant of sending their wards to the schools.

Responding to it, Panda said such observations are not backed by science.

“Overwhelming evidence suggests an extremely low rate of COVID-19 disease severity among the children. The vaccines we have do not restrict virus transmission. So the children will always remain susceptible to spread the COVID-19 infection,” Panda added.

His remarks have come after the SEC recommended Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin to be administered among children above two years of age.

Dr Rajeev Jayadevan, a member of the Indian Medical Association’s National Task Force on Coronavirus also said that children are extremely unlikely to develop complications of severe disease or death from COVID-19, unlike adults.

He expressed that controlling the infection spread through immunisation of children may turn into a futile exercise.

The noted public health expert said that age is the most significant risk factor for COVID complications and the difference between age groups.

“An older adult at 70 years age is 220 times more likely to die than a young adult of 20 with COVID-19. In the case of children, the risk of getting a complication is much lower than even the youngest adult.

“In Kerala, the Pediatric covid mortality is only 0.008%, which is very close to zero. Most of these were children with comorbid conditions. Which also means that the number of people required to be vaccinated to prevent one complication will be far greater in the case of children,” he explained.

Jayadevan also said that a short period of protection makes Pediatric COVID vaccination unattractive – when done to prevent infection

“It is true that in the first two months or so of vaccination, the child will not contract the virus. But this protection wanes quickly. The question is, is vaccination of crores of healthy children worth it just to prevent a few asymptomatic and mild infections for the first few months alone? It does not make sense to vaccinate enormous numbers of children to prevent one rare complication,” he noted.

By Ashish Srivastava

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