Only vulnerable children over 12 or who live with vulnerable adults will get Covid vaccines for now

2

View
comments

Children over 12 who have underlying conditions, or are living with someone who does, will be offered a Covid vaccine, health chiefs said today.

This includes youngsters with severe mental disabilities, Down’s syndrome, immunosuppression and multiple or severe learning disabilities, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation said.

Additionally, young people aged 12 to 17 who live with an immunosuppressed person, such as an adult receiving chemotherapy, will be invited to get the jab.

The JCVI scientists — who advise No10 on the inoculation drive — said this will protect people in their household who cannot produce a proper immune response to the vaccine. 

The long-waited guidance on jabs for children opens the vaccine rollout to an additional 370,000 children in England.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid accepted the advice and asked the NHS to put it into action as soon as possible using the Pfizer vaccine.

Professor Adam Finn, a member of the JCVI, said he would be surprised if the uptake was below 90 per cent for the newly eligible group.

The experts said healthy children should not yet be given the vaccine because current evidence shows the ‘minimal health benefits’ for them do not outweigh the risks.

But they will continue to review evidence and may issue updated advice in the coming months. 

It comes as all Covid restrictions were lifted in England today, with daily cases hitting 39,950 and 19 people dying form the virus. 

The JCVI considered a study by Pfizer that examined the affect of their jab on 2,000 children, as well as real-world data from countries who are already immunising youngsters.

Professor Finn said evidence showed Covid ‘very rarely’ affects children seriously, but children with underlying conditions were most likely to be severely impacted.

The experts ‘did not ignore’ factors like the benefits vaccinating children brings for the wider community and the disruption caused to schools because children are isolating, he said.

But the decision was based on the risk-benefit analysis for the children receiving the vaccine, Professor Finn said. 

The rollout to the new group will now happen ‘pretty fast’, he added. 

Vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi told MPs this afternoon: ‘The JCVI considered not just the health impacts, but the non-health impacts as we asked them to do so, like how education is disrupted by outbreaks in schools. 

‘I should reassure the house that the number of children and young people who have had severe outcomes from Covid is extremely low with a hospitalisation rate during the second wave between 100 and 400 for every million. 

‘When we look at the small numbers who were hospitalised, most of them had severe underlying health conditions.

‘The steps we are taking today mean we will be offering even more vulnerable people the protection that a vaccine brings. And we will all be safer as a result.’ 

Health Secretary Sajid Javid said the recommendation means more vulnerable young people at greatest risk from this virus can now benefit from vaccines. 

‘I have accepted their expert recommendations and I have asked the NHS to prepare to vaccinate those eligible as soon as possible.    

‘Covid-19 vaccines have saved almost 37,000 lives and prevented around 11.7million infections in England alone. They are building a wall of defence and are the best way to protect people from serious illness. I encourage everybody who is eligible to get their jabs as soon as they can.’

Professor Anthony Harnden, deputy chair of the JCVI, said: ‘The primary aim of the vaccination programme has always been to prevent hospitalisations and deaths. 

‘Based on the fact that previously well children, if they do get Covid-19, are likely to have a very mild form of the disease, the health benefits of vaccinating them are small.

‘The benefits of reducing transmission to the wider population from children are also highly uncertain, especially as vaccine uptake is very high in older people who are at highest risk from serious Covid-19 infection.

‘We will keep this advice under review as more safety and effectiveness information becomes available.’ 

Mr Zahawi said this morning the Government had niggling concerns about the ‘very rare’ cases of heart inflammation in some young people given the Pfizer and Moderna jabs.  

There has been extremely rare reports myocarditis — an inflammation of the heart — and pericarditis — when the protective layer around the heart becomes inflamed — in young people who got the vaccine.

Data from the US — where cases of myocarditis have been spotted — suggests the complication is most common in boys and young men.  

Young people aged 16 and 17 who have underlying health conditions have already been offered the jab. 

Covid is rarely severe or fatal in children, with just 30 dying from Covid in the UK in the first year of the pandemic.  

The committee is waiting for evidence from children receiving both doses in the US and in trials before recommending all healthy children be injected.

But they will ‘leave the door open’ for a wider rollout among children after they review safety data from trials later this year, according to the Daily Telegraph. 

Pfizer is currently trialling its jab on children aged between two and 11, while AstraZeneca is testing its jab on six to 17-year-olds. 

Results from the trials are expected to be published around November. 

It is still unclear if the AstraZeneca vaccine will be given to children in the UK — it is already restricted in adults under 40 due to its very rare links to deadly blood clots.  

Pressed on why the Government was not looking to jab all children, Mr Zahawi told Sky News this morning: ‘The JCVI are continuing to review that. 

‘There is new emerging data of children vaccinated in America and elsewhere with a first dose, not yet enough data with a second dose, so they want to look at all the data.

‘There is a very rare signal around something called myocarditis, which is an inflammation of the heart. 

‘On balance, I think the JCVI are coming down on the side of continuing to review all children, healthy children, but wanting to protect the vulnerable children first.’ 

British health chiefs already warn Pfizer and Moderna’s coronavirus vaccines may cause heart damage.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency insists the complication – inflammation of the heart muscle which can damage the organ over time – is still ‘extremely rare’ and ‘typically mild’.   

Data from the US — where cases of myocarditis have been spotted — suggests the complication is most common in boys and young men.

Professor Helen Bedford, a children’s health expert at University College London, said: ‘To recommend a vaccine for any population group there needs to be careful weighing up of the risks of the disease and benefits and risks of vaccinating. 

‘Healthy young people and children, become seriously ill with Covid extremely rarely, so there would be few direct benefits for them of vaccination but it would contribute to increasing population immunity. 

‘There may be a stronger case for vaccinating those with existing serious health conditions. 

‘Before recommending vaccination for all children and young people we therefore need to be very clear about of the safety of the vaccines in this group. 

‘Although there is now good trial data and experience of vaccinating very large numbers of adults and the vaccines have been shown to be safe, we cannot automatically assume this applies to children. 

‘More information is needed from trials and experience of using these vaccines in young people and children before the programme is rolled out further.’

It comes as Professor Neil Ferguson, dubbed ‘Professor Lockdown’ after his grim modelling of the first wave initiated the first shutdown last March, warned yesterday that herd immunity will be impossible without vaccinating children.

Herd immunity is when so much of a population is immune to a virus, either through vaccination or previous infection, that the disease starts to decline. 

Professor Ferguson told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show yesterday: ‘We’re already seeing very high numbers of cases in teenagers, and we won’t be able to reach herd immunity without significant immunity in basically people under 18.’ 

He also warned daily figures could reach 200,000 infections and 2,000 hospitalisations.

Professor Ferguson said: ‘We’ll know it’s worked when case numbers plateau and start going down, we know then hospitalisations and deaths will take some more weeks.

‘The best projections suggest that could happen any time from, really, mid-August to mid-September. So, we will have to be patient.

‘It’ll also take us three weeks before we know the effect of Monday, of relaxing restrictions, and what that will do to case numbers. So, it’s going to be quite a period of time.’