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Pressure is mounting on ministers and advisers to make a decision on vaccinating children against Covid as a Sage scientist warns the current wave is likely to be the longest yet, with hospitalizations and deaths “Exhausting” before the end of the year despite the deployment of the vaccine.
In June, the UK Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) approved the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine for use in children aged 12 to 15. In making their decision, the MHRA said the jab is safe and effective in this age group, and the benefits outweigh the risks. Jabs are already given to children in some other countries including 5m aged 12 to 15 in the United States.
However, expert opinion on whether jabs should now be made available to older children in the UK seems mixed.
While some have suggested that there is a delicate balance between the risks and benefits of moving, as well as ethical concerns given that vulnerable people in many poor countries have yet to be stung, others stressed that it is necessary to avoid any interruption of education, to achieve collective immunity and to prevent children from falling ill, including with the long Covid.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI) has made recommendations to the government on the matter, according to the Guardian. But ministers have yet to reveal what the opinion says and what political decision has been taken – a delay that leaves some committee members perplexed.
“It is not in our hands because we only advise ministers,” said a member of the JCVI. However, another person with knowledge of the situation suggested that JCVI discussions may be ongoing as the benefit / risk data is incomplete.
A senior Tory MP said some government doctors “still struggle with the idea that it might not be ethical and maybe even legal” to vaccinate children when it might not be in their personal best interests, even if it was in the interest of society at large. .
The delay comes as England prepares to lift nearly all coronavirus restrictions on Monday, as data shows one in 95 people in the community in England have had the virus in the most recent week.
Scientists urged the government to release details of JCVI’s notice. Speaking to the Guardian, Professor John Edmunds, an infectious disease modeling expert at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) and the Spi-M modeling subgroup, said cautioned that the current situation is different from past waves.
“[With] the previous waves we reduced them by locking them in and so they were pretty big peaks, ”he said, adding that this meant that cases and subsequently hospitalizations were reduced quickly. But the government’s plan was to stop blocking.
“I think it’s an inherently riskier situation and the second thing about it is I think we’ll probably have a much longer wave than we’ve seen before,” he said, with relatively high hospital admissions for quite a long time, as modeled by the experts at Spi-M.
“These epidemic peaks are long and drawn-out affairs” which could lead to a high cumulative number of hospitalizations and deaths over the rest of the year, he said. “That’s why you end up with what looks like a really scary number of deaths and hospitalizations. “
Assuming the protection offered by Covid vaccines does not wane, modeling by Edmunds and colleagues suggests between around 82,000 and 160,000 Covid hospitalizations by the end of the year and between around 9,000 to 18,000 deaths. additional, depending on the evolution of public behavior from Monday.
Edmunds said he supports immunization of school-aged children, ideally during summer vacation, and supported calls for the publication of the JCVI advisory.
Dr Michael Head, a senior researcher in global health at the University of Southampton, has also called for the publication of the JCVI decision. “Given that the UK is opening up society and essentially exposing children to a high burden of Covid-19, it would be good to have a decision from the JCVI very soon,” he said.
However, Sir Andrew Pollard, head of the Oxford Vaccine Group, said it was right that the focus was elsewhere. “Right now, the focus is rightly on ensuring high vaccine use in adults to minimize public health risks and pressure on the NHS,” he said.
The Ministry of Health and Social Affairs has been approached for comment.
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