India Advises To Use Local COVID Vaccine For Children Under 12 Years

JAKARTA - India has recommended the emergency use of a COVID-19 vaccine made by local company Bharat Biotech in children under the age of 12.

The decision came as India shifted its focus to vaccinating children, after injecting more than 950 million doses of the vaccine into adults of its roughly 1.4 billion population.

According to Dr. Gagandeep Kang, professor at Christian Medical College, Vellore, children with congenital diseases should be vaccinated as soon as possible because there are now available vaccines with immunogenicity in children and a large safety database in adults.

Immunogenicity is the ability of a substance to trigger an immune response in the human body.

"For healthy children who are at lower risk of contracting COVID-19, it is safer to wait until more adults are vaccinated," Kang said, quoted by Antara from Reuters, Tuesday, October 12.

Bharat Biotech started trials of Covaxin in children in June after the second wave of COVID-19 caused by the Delta variant caused India's healthcare system to collapse.

Data from the age group 2 to 18 years has been thoroughly reviewed by the Central Drug Standards Control Organization and a committee of experts in the field who have made positive recommendations, the company told Reuters.

Bharat Biotech has not publicly disclosed data on the efficacy and safety of its vaccine in children.

Covaxin, which uses an inactivated coronavirus with immune boosters, is one of three vaccines used in India to vaccinate adults.

More than 110 million doses of Covaxin have been distributed and the company is in the process of obtaining an emergency use permit from the World Health Organization (WHO).

Without WHO approval, the two-dose vaccine would not be allowed for use worldwide.

So far, only DNA-based vaccines from drugmaker Zydus Cadila have been allowed for emergency use in children at least 12 years of age.