5 Reasons Why it is Necessary to Get Your Child Vaccinated Against Covid-19

India has given 189 crore doses, fully vaccinating 86 crore people and 62.3% of the total population. With most adults being vaccinated, the government has shifted its focus to children. India announced vaccination for 12-14 year-olds from March 2022. As estimated by the government, 50 million children are set to receive vaccination as part of the drive. The health ministry has also approved the emergency use of vaccines on children aged five to 12 years. It is an excellent opportunity for the country to catch up with vaccination goals and a crucial step towards containing the spread of the virus, especially when cases have started rising again.Also Read – Top 5 Amazing Benefits Of Keeping The Beautiful Snake Plant At Home | Watch Video

It is important to vaccinate children because, like adults, asymptomatic children can spread the disease unknowingly. Children have shown milder symptoms of contracting COVID-19 infection, but infection can lead to severe cases. Even as a carrier of the virus, children can expose adults with comorbidities to the virus, keeping them at the risk of hospitalization. Additionally, children are susceptible to long COVID symptoms after recovering from the illness. Also Read – Diabetes Symptoms: How Your Skin Can Warn You Before It’s Too Late to Reverse Diabetes!

As a parent, you make important decisions for your child’s life like where to live, which school to go to, what to eat, etc. Whether to administer vaccines to your child or not is a powerful way for parents to control their kids’ well-being. It is an important decision that decides their health and future growth. Also Read – Lifestyle Changes That Can Help Manage Rheumatoid Arthritis – What Scientific Evidence Tells Us?

Dr Pramod Jog (Professor of Pediatrics, National IAP Past President, COVID-19 Taskforce member Maharashtra, Senior consultant to UNICEF) shares five reasons why you must immunize your child against COVID-19:

Mitigates the severity of the virus

While children have only a mild impact from contracting the virus, there is a probability of a small number of children who may get severely sick after catching the disease. They may end up needing hospitalization. The vaccination protects against contracting the virus and mitigates the severity of the disease in children. It will enable you to manage the disease at home.

Children can infect adults

So far, we have seen that children have had a mild impact from the virus. However, they can still act as carriers to infect adults who may have worse consequences and increased morbidity and mortality. It becomes increasingly important when children return to school and resume their normal activities.

New variants may escape antibodies to cause infection

Children have shown a seroprevalence of antibodies above 70 per cent even without vaccination. However, there is a chance that the new emerging variants have immune escape mechanisms to cause infection. The same can only be reduced by vaccination. Also, all unvaccinated children are a susceptible cohort for COVID-19 (of whichever variant).

Risk among children with comorbidities

Children with comorbidities are always at high risk when it comes to contracting the virus. They have high mortality, especially those with severe malnutrition, tuberculosis, obesity, uncontrolled asthma, kidney disorders, haematological diseases, malignancy, cerebral palsy/ neurological illness, congenital heart disease, juvenile diabetes, and immunodeficiency states like HIV. Physically or mentally challenged children with any of these comorbid conditions need to be immunised as soon as possible.

High risk among younger children

COVID-19 should not be taken lightly in younger children. Around 11% of COVID-19 cases were among children younger than 10 years of age during the second wave. Many had reported cases of the multisystem inflammatory syndrome and long COVID-19. The Indian Academy of Pediatrics expert group on vaccination strongly endorses COVID-19 vaccines for children starting five years of age.

Conclusion

The vaccines give children five years and above the strength to fight against the virus as they return to school safely. The herd immunity, which will be the outcome of such large scale vaccination among adults and children, will boost confidence among parents and school administration about children’s return to school. Let’s get our children immunized and strengthen our defense against Covid 19.

The Indian government has approved two vaccines for children – CORBEVAX and COVAXIN. CORBEVAX is a protein subunit vaccine manufactured using a well-established platform similar to the Hepatitis B vaccine & is licensed for age group five years and above. COVAXIN is an inactivated vaccine approved for six years and above. Both CORBEVAX and COVAXIN have already been administered to older children. Both the vaccines are safe, with crores of doses already being administered.