Children could receive a coronavirus vaccine from August, a plan leaked to The Telegraph reveals. The ramped up effort is aimed at speeding up herd immunity, whereby the virus is no longer spreading in the population. The government has to hold fire until data from an ongoing child vaccine study by Oxford University confirms its safety and efficacy.
It also expects to run a second trial in children aged five to 11 years.
Pfizer’s chief executive, Albert Bourla, told Reuters in March that he expected younger teens to be eligible for coronavirus vaccination in the autumn and primary school children by the end of the year.
The Oxford research group is also testing its vaccine in children aged six to 17, in a trial funded by the National Institute for Health Research and AstraZeneca. The phase II trial, which began in February, will enrol 300 volunteers.
Up to 240 of these participants will receive the COVID-19 vaccine, while the rest will be given a control meningitis vaccine—being used as it is expected to produce similar reactions, such as soreness at the injection site.
Why it is important to vaccinate children
Speaking to the British Medical Journal (BMJ), Beate Kampmann, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’s Vaccine Centre said that while most children were not at risk of severe COVID-19 illness, they may have an important role when it comes to transmission.
Kampmann continued: “To include children in the vaccination programme is essentially a question of their role in transmission of the virus. They do not usually have severe disease manifestations, with a few exceptions, usually related to comorbidities. The more adults we can protect with the vaccines the less the vaccination of children would matter.
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“However, to achieve as much suppression of viral circulation and to get to community immunity which can then suppress transmission and evolution of new variants, it could be justified.”
She added that it was unlikely that children under five would be vaccinated.
Commenting on what evidence would be needed to extend authorisation to children, Kampmann, who is a professor of paediatric infection and immunity, said: “We need to exclude side effects in children, and we need to show that the vaccines induce a similar immune profile as we have seen in the already highly protected adults—then the vaccines could be approved on the ground of so called immunobridging.”
When can I expect the vaccine?
You must wait to be contacted.
The NHS will let you know when it’s your turn to have the vaccine.
It’s important not to contact the NHS for a vaccination before then.
Source: Daily Express
