Children to get COVID-19 vaccine from September

July 10, 2021 Hot from the Oven Valli Sarvani No comments

As experts warn about the third wave of COVID-19, parents are eagerly waiting for a vaccine to protect their children against the virus. Some pharmaceutical companies already started clinical trials on children.

In this context, Dr NK Arora, head of the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration said that vaccination for children will start by September.

Though Bharat Biotech started clinical trials of its vaccine, Covaxin, on children, the data for phase 3 trials will be available by the end of September. Hence, Covaxin will be available for 2 to 18-year-olds in the third quarter of this year or January-February 2022.

But, Zydus Cadila’s vaccine data for adolescents will be available before that. Hence, vaccination for children will be started with Zydus Cadila’s ZyCoV-D vaccine from September.

ZyCoV-D is a plasmid DNA vaccine. When the vaccine was tested on adolescents aged 12 to 18 years, it was proved to be safe. An independent Data Safety Monitoring Board monitored the data of all three phases and found that the vaccine was well tolerated. The ideal temperature for the vaccine is 2-8 degrees Celsius. Yet, it showed good stability at temperatures of 25 degrees Celsius also for three months.

Availability of the vaccine to children is a great relief to parents in the wake of threats related to the third wave of COVID-19, which may affect children, according to many experts.

However, some health experts say that children will be safe and protected. The third wave might not impact them. But, the government does not want to take any chance on the health of children.

Hence, it is planning to establish some pediatric centres for children in many districts across the country. These centres will have all essential health infrastructure for children, including specialized Intensive care unit beds.

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