The case for vaccinating children against Covid-19

News: Protecting all children, especially those who have risk factors, should be a humanitarian priority for the Government.

How many children’s deaths are because of covid 19?

Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s COVID dashboard showed 16,426 total deaths, of which 19 were in children below 10, and 43 in children between 10-18 years (total of 62 or 0.38%).

January’s data from UNICEF show that 0.4% of a total of 3.5 million COVID-19 deaths were in children and adolescents. India’s reported deaths were 4.86 lakh till January 17, 2022. Among these, child deaths at a 0.4% rate would amount to 1,944.

Independent analysis by expert epidemiologists estimated a six to seven-fold higher number of deaths, suggesting a far higher number of child deaths.

What are the diseases developed in children after Covid-19?

Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome (MIS): According to statistics,  India showed 5% mortality among 800 children hospitalized for MIS. Among these, more than half required intensive care and prolonged hospital stay.

Diabetes: According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), on 80,893 children (below 18 years), the incidence of post-COVID-19 diabetes was 31 per 10,000 versus control, 11.8/10,000 after other respiratory infections.

What are the other diseases that are prevalent among children of India?

It is estimated that 2,00,000 children are born with congenital heart defects every year in India. New cases of cancer in children are about 50,000 per year. A huge number of children also suffering from neurological disorders.

According to a United Nations estimate, about 40 million in India are disabled due to various diseases, among whom over 7% are children. India has the second-highest number of obese children in the world (~14.4 million). The burden of childhood nephrotic syndrome annually is about 1,40,000. Sickle cell disease is highly prevalent in the tribal populations in India. The Indian Society for Primary Immune Deficiency estimates that over a million children have primary immune deficiency disease.

Considering the data, there is an urgent need to vaccinate children against COVID-19 and protect them from its severe damages.

Which vaccine should be allowed to vaccinate children against Covid?

There are vaccines which are having serious adverse reactions like mRNA vaccines and Adenovirus vectored vaccines. This needs to be avoided for children.

Children should be vaccinated with vaccines that have little or no risks of serious adverse reactions.

Source: This post is based on the article “The case for vaccinating children against Covid-19″ published in The Hindu on 1st February 2022.