New Delhi: National Immunization Technical Advisory Group (NTAGI) President Dr NK Arora has said that children with comorbidities will be given priority after the launch of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign for children in the country.
Dr Arora said, “We are going to prioritize COVID-19 vaccination for children with critical illnesses and co-morbidities so that we can vaccinate them immediately and the rest of the healthy children can be immunized later.”
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Dr Arora said, “We are working on that and we are trying to identify those who are most at risk of getting serious illness and need hospitalisation.”
“Within the next few weeks, the list will be available in the public domain. Apart from this, we are also making arrangements in different parts of the country so that these children do not have to travel and vaccines can be made available within their district,” he said while speaking about prioritizing vaccination for children.
The Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) had earlier in August approved Zydus Cadila’s DNA vaccine for emergency use in adults and children aged 12 years and above.
A joint survey by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) earlier in June found that there was 55.7 per cent seroprevalence in the age group below 18 years and 63.5 per cent in the age group of 18 years and above.
The study also found that there was no statistically significant difference in prevalence between adults and children.
Schools in Delhi were reopened for classes 9 to 12 last month after a prolonged shutdown due to the Covid pandemic.
Commenting on the reopening of schools, Dr Arora said that “children are vectors”, adding that “they spread the infection but they do not get infected themselves”.
“That’s why it’s important that the adults who are around them – whether they be family members, teachers, non-teaching staff – need to be immunized and surrounded by a circle of protection,” he said.
“Our national goal is to vaccinate all adults”, said Dr. Arora.
“We have reached the half-mile mark. Once adults are vaccinated we have around 44 crore children below 18 years of age and we are ready to vaccinate children at the same pace,” he said, reported ANI.
Dr Arora further said that seropositivity results showing almost the same level of exposure to the virus, linking symptomatic infection or severe illness to disease, however, is very uncommon, especially in children under ten years of age.
“In fact, there are some estimates that compared to people over the age of 18, the risk of serious illness, hospitalization and death is about 1/15 as compared to adults who are older,” he told ANI .
Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan had earlier said in a press briefing that Zydus Cadila’s Kovid-19 vaccine would soon be introduced in the national immunization programme.
ZyCoV-D is a needle-free vaccine manufactured by Ahmedabad-based Zydus Cadila. It is the only vaccine that has so far received Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for administration in children aged 12 to 18 years.
Dr Arora said, “India is also preparing other pediatric vaccines so that we can vaccinate the rest of the child population”.
“Patient recruitment in the Covaxin trial is over and the results should be available this year. Novavax’s Covid-19 vaccine, Kovovax by Serum Institute of India (SII), which is for five to 17 years, is under process and will be another vaccine for immunization of children,” Dr Arora said.
“All these results will be available by the end of the year so that when we enter the next year, we will have two or three options for our child population,” he said.
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