BENGALURU: The state government is planning to launch a special drive to inoculate parents of small children (under 10 years) in the wake of reports that a possible third wave of Covid-19 infection could impact those below 18 years of the age the most.
Authorities said the government could declare parents of small children as a priority group for the purpose.
Plans are afoot to even inoculate children in select categories.
“We plan to identify parents of children below 10 years and vaccinate them on priority,” K Sudhakar, health minister, said.
“We will identify children with comorbidities and a decision will be taken to vaccinate depending on approvals.” The comment comes in the wake of the Centre’s submission in the Supreme Court on Saturday, stating pharmaceutical company Zydus Cadila has concluded clinical trials of its vaccine on children between 12 and 18 years age and that doses will soon be commercially available.
Dr S Ravi, nodal officer for genomic confirmation of SARS-CoV-2 in Karnataka, said Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin for children above two years is expected to be ready for use in September.
Sudhakar said the government is taking all possible precautions to blunt a surge and is planning to set up 80-bed paediatrics wards in all district hospitals besides ensuring routine health checks for children.
But experts said fears of children being exclusively vulnerable are unfounded.
They say there is no scientific evidence to prove there will be a third wave.
“The fact that those below 18 years have not yet been vaccinated is the only argument to say children will be more vulnerable,” said Dr S Vijaya, retired IISc professor and virologist.
“There is no scientific basis to say children alone are vulnerable.
In fact, this age group is the least vulnerable as most who were infected during the first and second wave were asymptomatic.” Experts also sought to dispel fears that the vaccine would not work against virus variants such as Delta Plus and Kappa and that there would be breakthrough (infection even after two doses) infections.
“Vaccines will work against all variants as they were prepared to neutralise the founder variant that originally came from Wuhan,” said virologist Dr T Jacob John.
“Subsequent variants are all of the same lineage.
As for breakthrough infections, rare cases could occur as the vaccine protects against severe disease but not against infection.” Dr John suggested a booster dose to protect against such reinfection.
Raghav Varadarajan, an IISc professor who is in the process of producing a vaccine for Covid-19, said: “Antibodies generated by existing vaccines show a reduction in neutralisation against variants like Delta and likely Delta Plus as well.
However, existing evidence suggests that vaccination protects against severe disease.
Recent data from the US indicates that a vast majority of current deaths are among unvaccinated people.”