Coronavirus jabs for healthy children aged 12 to 15 are likely to be approved.
Ministers are looking to approve the vaccination of the younger age group against the virus after asking the UK’s chief medical officers to review the evidence for a mass rollout.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) decided against backing the move on health grounds alone because Covid-19 presents such a low risk to younger teenagers.
But Professor Chris Whitty and the three other chief medical officers in the UK are reviewing the wider benefits of vaccinating the age group, such as minimising school absences and are expected to present their findings within days.
The government is awaiting their advice before making a final decision but ministers have indicated they are keen on authorising a wider rollout.
The JCVI did, however, announce on Friday (September 4) that it is widening the so-far limited rollout to more children in this age bracket who have underlying health conditions.
The programme is being extended from what had been considered the most at-risk children, to include children with chronic major heart, lung, kidney, liver and neurological conditions.
It means about 200,000 more children will be invited for vaccines.
Professor Wei Shen Lim, the JCVI’s chairman of Covid-19 immunisation, said the benefits were "too small" to support a universal rollout at this stage.
But Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) member Professor John Edmunds has warned there could be "a lot of disruption" to education without a wider rollout as he estimated around six million children have not contracted coronavirus.
"It’s a very difficult one, They’re going to take a wider perspective than the JCVI took, I think that’s right," he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
"I think we have to take into consideration the wider effect Covid might have on children and their education and developmental achievements.
"In the UK now it’s difficult to say how many children haven’t been infected but it’s probably about half of them, that’s about six million children, so that’s a long way to go if we allow infection just to run through the population, that’s a lot of children who will be infected and that will be a lot of disruption to schools in the coming months."
Multiple reports have government insiders playing up the likelihood of a subsequent approval of the programme.
A government source told the BBC: "We believe there is strong case to vaccinate but await the advice of the chief medical officers."
To get the latest email updates from the Manchester Evening News, click here.
