A LEADING paediatrician has called for Nicola Sturgeon to launch an “immediate” programme to vaccinate secondary pupils before they return to school next month.
Professor Anthony Costello, a former director of the World Health Organisation, underlined that the UK’s medicines regulator has approved the use of the Pfizer jag in early June – a move strongly welcomed at the time by the First Minister.
He also pointed out around the world some eight million children had already been vaccinated including in the United States, Canada, Europe and the Middle East.
Costello is a founding member of the Independent Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, better known as Independent Sage, which seeks to influence the UK Government over Covid policies.
“I would go ahead to offer vaccination to children 12 to 17 immediately, given that the MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency) approved this in early June. Maybe eight million or more children have been vaccinated in the US, Europe, Israel and Middle East, so the UK is an outlier,” he said.
The UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has been assessing whether to recommend the vaccination of children over 12 for several weeks. Their role is to weigh up whether giving the jags to children is an effective use of the vaccines and consider the benefits and any potential risks.
Both Boris Johnson and the First Minister have said they want to see the guidance provided by the JCVI before making a decision. Currently the JCVI advise just giving the vaccine to over 18s.
Several members of the JCVI have already spoken out publicly against vaccinating children as a priority including Professor Andrew Pollard, of Oxford University, who said in May it felt “morally wrong” to vaccinate children in the UK ahead of people in poorer countries in other parts of the world.
“It feels completely wrong to be in a situation morally where we are allowing that to happen whilst in many countries vaccines are being rolled out to younger and younger populations at very, very low risk. Children have near to zero risk of severe disease or death,” Pollard told MPS.
Costello last night pointed to data published in a paper on Friday which looked at figures on deaths and admissions for Covid among children in the UK over a one year period. It found that some 5800 children were admitted to hospital with the virus and about 250 required intensive care. It also found there were 690 children admitted for a rare inflammatory condition linked to Covid, called paediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome (PIMS-TS) He said the paper reported there had been 61 deaths in positive cases among children of which 25 are due to Covid. The paper concluded the risks to children are very low.
However, he said those findings would make him come to a different conclusion.
“My conclusion is if you add these data to the unknown risks of Long Covid and the risks of transmission by children to older members of their household is the opposite. And as MRHA have approved the vaccine it seems odd for JCVI to withhold its availability to parents who want their children vaccinated,” he said.
The First Minister welcomed the approval of the Pfizer vaccine to over 12s at the start of June, saying it made her “heart sing”.
She was asked at her briefing on Thursday if she had plans to vaccinate this age group amid scientists’ concerns over the consequences of not doing so.
She replied: “I put great store on issues like vaccination on following the clinical advice ... From a non clinical perspective I don’t take the view that we should blithely let kids or young people get infected and not care about the consequences.”
She added: “I suppose from a non clinical perspective I want to see this vaccine reach as far as possible. And as long as the risk benefit ratio is right then if it is possible to do then I want to see young people get the opportunity for vaccination as well because I want to see young people protected as much as possible but I need to see the clinical advice as to whether that is the clinically appropriate thing to do. And I hope we have that advice sooner rather than later.”
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