At a time, when the Omicron cases in India have crossed the 500-mark, children belonging to the age group 15-18 will be receiving their Covid-19 jab from January 3 onwards and the registration for the same will begin from January 1.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a sudden address to the nation on Christmas, made a series of announcements on the next steps of vaccination for children and booster
doses for frontline workers and people above the age of 60.

Modi added that the vaccination for children will reduce their worries of going to schools and colleges and their parents, and boost the fight against the pandemic. He hopes that the move is likely to aid in the normalisation of teaching in schools.

How to register for children's vaccination?

From January 1, children between the 15-18 age group will be eligible to register on the CoWIN platform.

The registration will require children to register with their student identity card.

"We've added an additional (10th) ID card for registration - the student ID card because some might not have Aadhaar or other identity cards,” said Dr RS Sharma, CoWIN platform chief.

What do we know about children’s vaccines?

As Omicron cases across the country surged have been surging high, the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (NTAGI) held a meeting on December 8 evaluating the results of all the recent trials for children’s vaccines.

Back then, the Zydus Cadila’s ZyCoV-D vaccine, which is the world's first DNA plasmid vaccine against coronavirus, was approved by the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) for emergency usage for children above the age of 12. However, the government had informed that the vaccine would be rolled out during an appropriate time.
Apart from this, Bharat Biotech recently conducted Phase II and III trials for Covaxin for children from ages 2 to 18. Trials were also conducted for Serum Institute of India’s vaccine Covovax, for children between 2 and 18.

On Friday, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said that the government of India has “clearly articulated the position that we would be governed with science and scientific evidence on deciding on the need and timing for additional doses and for lowering the age of vaccination,” reported ANI.

Children’s vaccine ‘unscientific’: AIIMS

Dr Sanjay K Rai, a senior epidemiologist at AIIMS, on Sunday termed the Centre's decision to vaccinate children against Covid "unscientific".

Rai, who is the principal investigator of Covaxin trials for adults and children at the institute, said that the move will not yield any additional benefit.

Rai added that before implementing the decision, data from countries that have already started vaccinating children should be analysed.

Citing the data around infection and severity of death, Dr Rai said that there “should be a clear-cut objective of any intervention” and expanding his view, he added that the objective is to either prevent coronavirus infection or severity or death.

He added, “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.”

In the case of children, the severity of infection and death is however low, in comparison to adults. Citing data he said that in children, 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, adding, "Both the objectives are not being fulfilled by initiating vaccination among children.”

What do experts think about children’s vaccination?

A previous report suggests that a section of noted epidemiologists and medical experts have expressed serious reservations against the use of Covid-19 vaccines among children. They say that the rush to vaccinate kids for Covid-19 which carries a far lesser threat to them, in the presence of some known and several unknown long-term risks, is deeply concerning.

Global evidence available so far has suggested that the Covid-19 virus has infected kids but it hasn’t caused any severity among them. The mortality rate is as low as two children per 10 lakh. However, in India, the government hasn’t released any data on the mortality of children due to Covid-19 in both the first and the second waves.

The seroprevalence survey conducted in various parts of the country including Delhi has shown that 70 per cent to 90 per cent of kids have already been exposed to the virus and they have developed natural antibodies.

Experts like Dr Rai and Dr Jayaprakash Muliyil, who is chairman of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the National Institute of Epidemiology, are of the view that the risk of Adverse Event Following Immunization (AEFI) is very low but it is not zero at all.

Many experts have expressed their serious concern over the unknown long term adverse effect of vaccines. No one knows what will happen a few years down the line after vaccinating children.

(with inputs from PTI and reporters)