Covid live news: UK considering compulsory vaccination for NHS staff; Malaysia to increase immunisation efforts
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More on the question of vaccinating children, one expert has said that the emergence of new variants could influence the decision in the UK.
Professor Peter Openshaw, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), told Times Radio that there were “debates” about the possible risks of “very, very rare complications” associated with vaccination, which had to be balanced against the “certainty” that someone can get “very severe complications” by catching Covid.
It may well be that actually giving children vaccines will become a clearer option once we know more about the disease in children and whether the new variants are spreading further into the paediatric population and causing more significant disease. That could certainly change the risk-benefit ratio.”
The new variants extending further down the age range and being of quite high prevalence even in children as young as four, it may be that actually children and school children are going to be a more important part of the transmission chain as the virus becomes more transmissible as new variants arise.
So… the benefits might change and that might affect the decision about whether to vaccinate children in the future.
British regulators were still considering whether to offer jabs to children, UK vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi told Sky News:
Our own regulator has not yet approved giving vaccines to children.
You have to make sure the vaccines are incredibly safe before you give them to children.
On the whole you are vaccinating to protect their families and their communities and the country.
Read the original article at The Guardian