Mumbai: The first coronavirus vaccine for teenagers is almost here, but experts say child vaccination is not a prerequisite for reopening schools, or for children to attend classes.
Some public health experts echo that the focus must be in the early teacher and staff to restart the school that remains closed for almost 18 months.
Zydus Cadila Vaccine, Zycov-D, has received an emergency use approval from Indian drug regulators this week.
While the policy of the vaccination of children is in work, the center on Thursday shows that it can start from October.
There are also reports that children with existing health conditions can be given priorities and vaccinations for healthy children can only start next year.
“There is little meaning in thinking that schools should not be opened until children are vaccinated,” said Dr.
Chandrakant Lahariya, an epidemiologist and a health system expert.
In addition to the problem of availability, the fact that Zycov-D is based on a completely new platform, Plasmid DNA, must be considered.
“Because children between 12 and 17 have a very low risk of disease and much lower than adults, their vaccination needs to wait until the proportion of a large enough adult has been vaccinated,” he said.
Lahariya also signifies an open letter for all major ministers, where they urge countries to open schools, quote that the fear of the school becomes a super unfounded spreader.
According to Immunologist Dr.
Vineeta Bal from the Institute of Education and Science Research (IISER), Pune, it is a teacher who needs to be vaccinated first.
“The urge must be about adult vaccination, including teachers, supervisors and parents at home because they remain more vulnerable,” he said, adding that the full vaccination of children also tends to take months and therefore cannot be attributed to the reoper.
Zycov-D is a three-dose vaccine that must be taken at zero, 28 and 56 days.
This means that the complete immunization of a child will take at least ten weeks, said Bal.
There are 44 children Crore for two years in this country, while in Maharashtra Nearly 3.5crore to 4Crore can fall in the category below 18.
The ethical debate is also if the government wants to divert the doses of adults who are more susceptible to children without comorbid .
About 1% of children are expected to have comorbidity.
The epidemic expert from JP Mulyil said that it was very rare for healthy children without the underlying comorbidity to die from this virus and national policies must consider it.
“The purpose of vaccination is to prevent severity and death, which is rare in children.
Healthy children also develop immunity to last for life,” he said, adding Britain to make a decision not to vaccinate children under 12.
Senior doctor from the Hospital Kem agreed that young children have a more active immune system than adults, and maybe a stronger reaction, including fever, fatigue.
Meanwhile, pediatrics, floods with phone calls from anxious parents.
Dr.
Vijay Yewale, a Pediatric State Taskforce member, said that vaccination children are certainly a “added benefit”.
“More than 95% of children fled with a mild infection because of a slight receptor expression, which is needed so that the virus causes damage.
However, it is a disease where there is no safe until everyone is safe,” he said.
There is also a rare case of multi-inflammatory syndrome in children.
“But, seeing low adult vaccination coverage, it will be practical to prioritize people who can become moderate and severe covid,” he added.