Vaccine for children will be open by first quarter of next year: NTAGI chief

Children are our most valuable assets, they will be given vaccine with the same gusto and same enthusiasm as adults are given, claims NTAGI chief NK Arora.

“Currently, there are 4 vaccines in various stages of trial for children. The first one you have already heard of is the world’s first DNA vaccine. The second is Covaxin, which has been cleared by the subject expert but some steps are still to be taken. There are two more vaccines, one is Corbovax, which is from Biological-E, and the third one is Covavax, so we have plenty of vaccines for children. Meanwhile, we are working on a priority list for children with comorbidities who have a 3-7 times more severe risk of diseases and death, so we will start immunising children,” he said.

He further added, “There are scientific studies going on for the same and a WHO consultation happened last week, but our priority is to give both the dozes to every adult, booster dozes are very contextual. In India many have got natural infection, and on top of that if we have vaccines it is like double barrel protection. So, usual adult in India does not require booster dose but it is being monitored if someone needs It. There is another dimension to this, one is additional dose and the other is booster dose. The booster obviously nothing even those health workers who took vaccine in early stages and many of us are being exposed repeatedly. So not in the moment but additional dose we are looking if it can be given to elderly or very old people who have immunocompromised or immunodeficiency stage. Otherwise, our vaccine system is doing very well.”