HOPE FOR THE YOUNG

COVID VACCINE FOR CHILDREN

- Sonali Acharjee

On July 21, India approved its sixth vaccine for emergency use against Covid-19. The three-dose DNA vaccine ZyCoV-D, from Zydus Cadila, developed with the Department of Biotechnology, will be the first approved for the 12-18 age group in the country and the first DNA vaccine against Covid in the world. It is the country’s second homegrown jab. “This is the first step towards ensuring safe reopening of schools,” says Dr Randeep Guleria, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) director and member of the government expert panel on Covid. While children themselves are usually diagnosed with an asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic version of the disease, they can transmit the disease to others in their homes.

“Those below 10 years have accounted for a lower percentage of overall positive cases,” says Dr Jesal Sheth, a paediatrician with Fortis in Mumbai. However, serosurveys have shown that those below the age of 10 have a high prevalence of Covid antibodies, suggesting that many of them might have had asymptomatic or undiagnosed Covid. A study by the World Health Organization (WHO) and AIIMS found that in a densely-populated resettlement colony in South Delhi, 74 per cent of the children had antibodies; at 87 per cent, rural Gorakhpur had the highest seroprevalence among children. The study concluded that those below 18 had almost the same seroprevalence rate as adults. In Mumbai, state surveys have shown that 50 per cent of the children have antibodies.