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Children may soon get protected against the COVID-19 infection as the Indian government has revealed that vaccines are likely to be available for children in the age group of 12 to 18 years by the month of July or early August. According to Dr. NK Arora, the ZyCoV-D vaccine developed by Zydus Cadila has almost completed its trials and can be administered to children between 12-18 years. Dr Arora is the Chairman of India’s Covid-19 working group of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation(NTAGI).
Currently, all the three vaccines available in the country- Covishield, Covaxin and Sputnik V can only be administered to those above the age of 18 years. The Pfizer vaccine has been approved in the US for those above 12 years but it has not yet received regulatory approval in India.
If it gets approved, the ZyCoV-D vaccine will be the first DNA based vaccine in the world and the fourth vaccine to be made available in India. The vaccine has been developed by Ahmedabad based pharma company Zydus Cadila and will require 3 doses for complete vaccination. The company is likely to approach the drug regulator DGCI for an emergency use authorisation for its vaccine.
The Central government, on Saturday, told the Supreme Court that it plans to procure 135 crore vaccine doses by the end of 2021 including 50 million doses of the ZyCoV-D vaccine.
Dr. Arora further talked about the fears of the third wave of COVID-19 and said that that country had a window period of 6-8 months to vaccinate all citizens. He announced that the government plans to increase the daily vaccination target to 1 crore doses a day. On Sunday, 17,15,921 doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered across the country.