Coronavirus vaccine: Why we need to urgently have a COVID-19 vaccine for children

Accelerated work surrounding COVID-19 research is making everybody set their eyes on a potential vaccine, with the earliest doses expected to be rolled out by January 2021. Dr Harsh Vardhan, country's Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare has also said that he expects 1 in 5 Indians to be vaccinated by July next year.

While we have the timeline for vaccine delivery and administration ready, vaccine trials do not cover all vulnerable groups right now, including pregnant women and children. Such a gap would still pose problems related to vaccine delivery, and leave a big percentage of the population vulnerable to the risk of infection.

Of all of the vaccine candidates in contention right now, Oxford-Astrazeneca is the only one which announced plans to enrol children aged between 5-18 years of age for their trials, but no further updates were received about the same. A study, published by the Oxford University also pressed on the urgent need to include children in the trials, emphasising that the “direct Covid-19 impact upon children is greater than that observed for other pathogens which have effective paediatric vaccines,”

Vaccine trials involve experimental doses which can be potentially unsafe for a growing child's immune system, and expose them to side-effects as well. Hence, fearing this, traditional vaccine trials, especially for the ones like COVID-vaccine trials, children are not subject to inoculation and testing. The same goes for pregnant women.

Secondly, children's immune systems can react differently than that of the adult population, meaning, vaccine makers could get different results from the volunteer group. This is yet another reason why novel vaccines aren't expedited or targeted at children.

Even if trials do happen, kids, who come under a high-risk group for the viral disease are only tested upon once ample safety data is received from concluding testing on healthy adults and senior citizens. Considering how badly the virus continues to spread, there are ample plans to launch the vaccine in a few months, just after safety and efficacy data is received from adult studies, meaning, children would be excluded and face risk.

UNICEF stats suggest that India's 'young' population comprises of 39% children, aged 18 and above. The way things are looking right now, even if a vaccine is soon launched for public use, it would mean that pregnant women, children would still have zero access to an effective vaccine- leaving them vulnerable to falling sick.

While there is not enough documented information regarding the spread of COVID amongst the younger population, it has been found that even if kids do not showcase symptoms, they can transmit the disease onto others- including healthy adults around them and senior citizens, who again, have a higher risk of developing severe COVID.

In fact, recent research done in parts of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka has also observed that kids aged 14 and below were silently acting as the carriers of the disease and spreading it amongst their contacts.

Studies out of Korea and China have also suggested that children, symptomatic or asymptomatic can also act as 'super-spreaders', transmitting the infection for up to three weeks. A vaccine which caters to the need of this designated group would ensure that we cut down on the transmission risk, especially at a time when COVID is peaking across the country.

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While authorities debate around the right time to reopen schools and colleges, having a vaccine ready would also mean that educational institutions and public spaces could reopen in a safe way. With a vaccine ready, kids could feel free to mingle with their peers, interact with adults, without exposing anyone to undue risk.

There's also a benefit of vaccinating kids. In a country like ours where adult vaccination programs are still skewed and garner lesser awareness, vaccination programs aimed at children are easier to get through. From babies to young teenagers, vaccination drives are present at all levels and are not as hurdle some like the ones targeted at the adult population.

Vaccination, for kids, also has a lot less mistrust and safety fears than it does with adults, thus driving home the message of mass vaccination without any problem of anti-vaxxing doubts.