By PTI
NEW DELHI: Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin is likely to be the only COVID-19 vaccine available, for now, for children in the age group of 15-18 years, who will be inoculated from January 3, official sources said.
Also, healthcare and frontline workers and citizens above 60 years of age with comorbidities would be administered the third dose of the same vaccine they had been given before.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a televised address to the nation on Saturday night, announced that vaccination against COVID-19 for children between 15-18 years will start from January 3, while “precaution dose” for healthcare and frontline workers would be administered from January 10.
The decisions came amid rising Covid cases linked to the Omicron variant of the virus.
The precaution dose will also be available for citizens above 60 years of age and with comorbidities on the advice of their doctor from January 10 next year as well, the prime minister had said.
“Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin is the only COVID-19 vaccine which will be administered, for now, to children in the age group of 15-18 years who will be inoculated from January 3. The estimated population to be covered in this category is seven to eight crores,” an official source said.
The source said that Zydus Cadila’s vaccine ZyCoV-D has not yet been introduced in the country’s inoculation programme, even for adults, though it had received emergency use authorisation from the drug regulator on August 20, making it the first vaccine that could be administered in the age group of 12-18 years in the country.
The indigenously developed ZyCoV-D is the world’s first DNA-based needle-free COVID-19 vaccine.
The gap between the second and third dose of COVID-19 vaccine, which is being termed as “precaution dose”, is likely to be nine to 12 months.
Necessary modifications are being done on the CoWIN portal to register the new category of vaccination.
The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) granted emergency use authorisation to indigenously-developed Covaxin for children above 12 years with certain conditions on Friday.
More than 61 per cent of India’s adult population has received both doses of the vaccine.
Similarly, about 90 per cent of the adult population has received the first dose of Covid vaccine.
The cumulative COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the country has exceeded 141 crore, according to the health ministry.
A stock of four to five crore vaccine doses of Covaxin are available with states and union territories.
A senior epidemiologist at AIIMS who is the principal investigator of Covaxin trials for adults and children at the institute on Sunday termed the Centre’s decision to vaccinate children against Covid “unscientific” and said it will not yield any additional benefit.
Dr Sanjay K Rai, who is also the president of the Indian Public Health Association, said before implementing the decision, data from countries that have already started vaccinating children should be analysed.
In an address to the nation on Saturday night, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that vaccination against COVID-19 for children in the 15 to 18 age group will start from January 3.
This will reduce the worries of children going to schools and colleges and their parents, and boost the fight against the pandemic, he said, adding that the move is also likely to aid in normalisation of teaching in schools.
“I am a great fan of PM Modi for his selfless service to nation and taking right decisions at right time. But I am completely disappointed with his unscientific decision on children vaccination,” Rai said in a tweet tagging the Prime Minister’s Office.
Elaborating his viewpoint, Rai said there should be a clear-cut objective of any intervention.
The objective is to either prevent coronavirus infection or severity or death.
“But according to whatever knowledge we have about vaccines, they are unable to make a significant dent in the infection. In some countries, people are getting infected even after taking booster shots.”
“Also, 50,000 breakthrough infections are being reported per day in the UK. So this proves that vaccination is not preventing coronavirus infection but vaccines are effective in preventing severity and death,” Rai told PTI.
He said mortality due to COVID-19 in susceptible populations is around 1.5 per cent, which means 15,000 deaths per million population.
“Through vaccination, we can prevent 80-90 per cent of these deaths, which means that 13,000 to 14,000 deaths per million (population) can be prevented,” he added.
Serious adverse events following immunisation are between 10 to 15 per million population, Rai said.
“So, if you do the risk and benefit analysis in adults, it is a huge benefit,” he said.
In the case of children, he said, the severity of infection is very low and according to data available in the public domain, only two deaths per million population have been reported.
“In this section (children), 15,000 (people) are not dying and keeping in mind the adverse effects also, if you do the risk and benefit analysis, then the risk is more than the benefits based on the available data,” Rai explained.
“Both the objectives are not being fulfilled by initiating vaccination among children,” he said.
Few countries, including the US, started vaccinating children four-five months ago.
The data of these countries should be analysed before initiating Covid vaccination for children, he said.