Children may be at greater risk of hospitalisation from the Omicron variant, experts have warned.
Kids were found to have 20 per cent greater risk of hospitalisation with the Omicron variant compared to Delta, found a recent report.
The data analysis comes from South Africa's National Institute of Communicable Diseases.
It found nine per cent of all coronavirus admissions were in children younger than five in the preceding three weeks.
Children aged 18 and younger made up over 20 per cent of hospital admissions.
The report looked at Covid hospital admissions up to December 4.
The publication comes as UK officials have not yet made a verdict on jags for children aged five to 11.
A decision could come before Christmas, according to the head of the UK's vaccine advisory group.
Nicola Sturgeon said today that Omicron will be the dominant Covid variant in Scotland tomorrow.
The report stated: "Children younger than 2 years (144/1,633) comprised 8.8% of all admissions while children 18 years and younger (347/1,6337) comprised 21.2% of all admissions during this period.
The proportion of children under five in hospital decreased over time as the number of older children increased.
It added: "However, this trend is changing and the proportion of admissions in children younger than five years has decreased from 14 per cent (week 46) to 11 per cent (week 47) to eight per cent (week 48)."
Professor Christina Pagel from University College London raised the issue with MPs on Tuesday.
She said: "There are indications it [Omicron] is more severe for children.
"Children at best have one vaccine dose, millions of them have none.
"We know that Delta ripped through schools this term.
"We have to expect unfortunately that Omicron is going to do the same if we don’t do something about protecting schools in January."
