- James Gallagher
- Health and Science Correspondent, BBC News
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1 hour
Image source, Getty Images
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The United States has already begun vaccinating minors.
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Vaccinating children is routinely accepted. Measles, polio, diphtheria, mumps, multiple strains of meningitis, whooping cough, are among the list of diseases for which minors are vaccinated, sometimes when they are only a few weeks old.
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So, should we vaccinate children against covid-19?
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There are countries that have already begun to do so. The United States has vaccinated about 600,000 children between the ages of 12 and 15.
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Authorities there hope to have enough data on vaccine safety to jump into immunizing even younger children next year.
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The UK is moving fast with adults and everyone should have been offered the first dose before the end of July, but has yet to make a decision on minors.
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The scientific question to answer is whether vaccinating children will save lives. The answer is complex and could vary from country to country.
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The moral question of whether doses to children would save more lives if they were administered to health workers and vulnerable populations in other countries.
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Very low risk in children
One of the arguments against vaccinating children against COVID-19 is that children actually benefit relatively little from it.
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Image source, Unicef
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With other vaccines given to minors, there is not as much controversy.
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“Fortunately, one of the few good things about this pandemic is that children are rarely seriously affected by this infection,” says Professor Adam Finn, a member of the UK Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization.
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Infections in children are almost always asymptomatic or show mild symptoms, which is in contrast to other age groups that have been prioritized in vaccination campaigns.
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A study conducted in seven countries and published in the journal The Lancet estimated that fewer than two in every million children died of covid during the pandemic.
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Even children with pre-existing conditions that would raise the risk in an adult are not getting the vaccine at the moment in the UK.
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Only those with a “very high risk of exposure and serious outcomes, such as disabled minors living in centers for dependents.
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Vaccines are remarkably safe, but their risks and benefits must be carefully weighed.
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Some countries could benefit
Another potential benefit of childhood vaccination is that it could save the lives of adults.
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It is an approach that has been used with adults. The nasal spray that British children between the ages of 2 and 12 receive extensively protects their grandparents each year.
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There are supporters that doing the same with the covid vaccine could help achieve the herd immunity, the point where so many people are protected that the virus finds it difficult to continue spreading.
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Covid vaccines have been shown to be very effective in stopping the spread of the coronavirus.
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Evidence suggests that with just one dose, the chances of getting infected are reduced to less than half as those who do get infected infect fewer people.
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Image source, EPA
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The vaccination of minors could also be beneficial for their grandparents.
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Children have so far not been shown to be major spreaders of the virus, but adolescents could play a role.
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“There is evidence of the potential for transmission in high school ages, so vaccination could have a real impact on transmission,” says Adam Kucharski of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
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But there is no unanimous answer to the question of whether it is worth it.
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The UK vaccination program is in full swing and there have been major outbreaks in the country that have likely left a legacy of immunity.
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More than a quarter of boys between the ages of 16 and 17 in England have antibodies in their blood, despite the fact that almost none of them have been vaccinated.
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So the UK and countries with similar characteristics might find that have sufficient herd immunity to stop the virus without having to vaccinate children.
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“It is very different in countries that have not had many outbreaks and that do not have as many covered adults; in these it will be difficult to achieve the goal without vaccinating children,” says Dr. Kucharski.
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Australia is one of the countries that is reluctant to be vaccinated, and, as also happened to New Zealand and Taiwan, it contained the virus so quickly that there is almost no immunity there.
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The ethical question
One thing to consider is who stops getting the vaccine that is injected into a child.
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The World Health Organization argues that rich countries should postpone their childhood vaccination plans and donate vaccines to the rest of the world.
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Professor Andrew Pollard, who led clinical trials for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, says it is “morally wrong” to prioritize the little ones.
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Image source, Reuters
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Vaccines could reach countries like India, where adult deaths continue to skyrocket.
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Eleanor Riley, an immunologist at the University of Edinburgh, stated: “There are arguments in favor of doing so if we had an unlimited supply of vaccines and we could continue with those over 12, but we don’t.”
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“At the end of the day, it is a political decision whether to prioritize our children over adults who die in droves elsewhere in the world,” he concluded.
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