BENGALURU: While the elderly are a high-risk group and on the list of people to receive the vaccine after health care workers and frontline staff, the youngest members of society - children - will likely remain outside the ambit of innoculation for around a year. While Russia declared the world’s first vaccine against COVID-19 as early as August, clinical trials on children began recently, as vaccines meant for both adults and children are first tested in adults. These studies could continue for up to a year.
“Trials done so far have been done only on adults, as we should have adequate and robust result before we start vaccinating children. Reactions and responses to vaccines can be entirely different in children,” said Dr Yogesh Gupta, paediatrician at Fortis Hospital.
“Children need the vaccine too, as they constitute a high-risk group, especially little ones, when they start going to school or mingle with others. Children can be carriers and hence its very important to vaccinate this sub-group or ESR we have may not be able to have complete control on the pandemic,” Dr Gupta added. Although the effect of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has been generally mild on children the world over, a vaccine for children needs to be tested on children, said Dr Srikanta JT, consultant for paediatric pulmonology at Aster CMI Hospital.
“We require more data into adult trials to conclusively say that these vaccines are absolutely safe and have reasonable efficacy. Therefore, until we have these conclusive results, it is difficult to get children recruited to clinical trials. Secondly, convincing parents will be a major hurdle in vaccinating children. Thirdly, there is a general fear that children, though asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic, will continue to be a carrier of the virus.
Hence, a vaccination program targeting them will be of paramount importance with plans of schools reopening. Once we have reasonable data from adult counterparts, vaccine companies can begin trials in children so as make sure the more vulnerable population do not get infected,” he said. Given that children sometimes develop Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome - Children (MIS-C), it could be longer before a vaccine is approved. “It probably will take couple of years at least to reach children’s safety trials.
The only disease morbidity we are seeing right now in children is the post - COVID Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children, and there are no studies to show whether these vaccines will actually protect against this immune-related condition. Further research is necessary,” said Dr Supraja Chandrasekhar, consultant paediatric intensivist at Columbia Asia Referral Hospital, Yeshwanthpur.
In Karnataka alone so far, 26,661 children between 0-9 age group and 59,087 between 10-19 years have been infected. There have been nine deaths between 0-9 age group and 45 deaths between 10-19.
Dr Gupta added, “Children should stick to S-Sanitisation M-Mask and S-Social distance, ensure hygiene and may be schools should be still online at least for kindergarteners.”