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LONDON (AP) – The UK government has decided not to vaccinate most children and adolescents against COVID-19 until more vaccine safety data becomes available.
Children from the age of 12 with severe neurological disorders, Down syndrome, immunosuppression and multiple or severe learning disabilities, as well as those who are family contacts of immunocompromised individuals, will be eligible for the vaccination, the government announced on Monday.
The decision to stop injecting vaccines to most people under the age of 18 was based on the recommendation of an expert advisory group. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization said the health benefits of universal immunization do not outweigh the risks for most young people, who usually only suffer from mild symptoms of the virus.
“Until more safety data is available and has been evaluated, a precautionary approach is preferred,” JCVI said in a statement..
Health Secretary Sajid Javid said in a statement that “today’s advice does not recommend vaccinating those under the age of 18 without underlying health issues at this stage.
“But the JCVI will continue to review new data and consider whether to recommend immunization for those under 18 without underlying health problems at a future date.”
The decision not to vaccinate most young people puts the UK at odds with France and several other European countries, which have decided to vaccinate adolescents as young as 12.
Among hundreds of people in a Paris vaccination center on Friday, dozens were teenagers with their parents. The French government announced last week that it plans to implement vaccination campaigns in colleges, high schools and universities in the fall.
In the UK, children and adolescents eligible for inoculation will receive the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine, the only vaccine that UK regulators have cleared for use in people under the age of 18. The University of Oxford is still conducting trials on the safety and efficacy in children of the vaccine it developed with AstraZeneca.
In addition to the medical and scientific questions surrounding the use of COVID-19 vaccines by adolescents, many public health experts have raised questions about the morality of vaccinating low-risk children at a time when many of the most vulnerable people in the world still do not have access to vaccines.
Professor Andrew Pollard, who was instrumental in the development of the AstraZeneca vaccine, told Parliament’s Science and Technology Committee last month that vulnerable adults elsewhere should be given priority over children.
“It is the elderly, those with other health problems and the healthcare workers who care for them, who must be given priority,” he said.
The Oxford trial is expected to help policymakers decide whether they want to expand mass immunization programs to children at some point in the future as they seek to keep schools safe and fight the spread of the virus in the general population, Pollard said.
The announcement came on the occasion of what the government has dubbed ‘Freedom Day’, the day most of the remaining COVID-19 restrictions were lifted across England. Bars and restaurants can now operate at full capacity and nightclubs are reopening for the first time in 16 months.
The government has decided to lift the restrictions because 88% of the adult population has now received at least one dose of the vaccine and more than two-thirds are fully immunized. While infections are increasing rapidly, the high level of immunization means fewer people become seriously ill than during the first waves of the virus.
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