A Bristol professor has used an appearance on Good Morning Britain to query whether children will receive coronavirus vaccinations as soon as some recent reports have suggested.
The Telegraph reports today that children could receive jabs as soon as August under provisional government plans that are dependent on favourable results from an ongoing safety trial.
However, the head of the Bristol Children's Vaccine Centre, Professor Adam Finn, remains sceptical of the reported plans. "We'll need to do more than one study," he told GMB. "And if you're right and it does turn out to be necessary to immunise children, I think [the programme] would prioritise teenagers over younger children. The evidence we have at the moment is that transmission is more likely to occur from and between teenagers, who are a little bit more like adults, of course. I suppose that is the most likely scenario.
Finn, who is also a professor of paediatrics at the University of Bristol, continued: "But I think, before that, we need to learn what proportion of the population we will need to immunise in order to get effective herd immunity and to suppress circulation of the virus, and in order to do that we need to have a clear understanding of how efficiently the vaccines interrupt infection and transmission. That evidence is still on its way at the moment."
The government has not officially confirmed any plans to vaccinate anyone under the age of 18 against Covid-19; the current programme is due to offer at least one jab to every adult by the end of July.
'If it turns out to be necessary to immunise children, I think we would prioritise teenagers over younger children.'
Professor of Paediatrics, Bristol Medical School, Adam Finn responds to the reports that children could start getting the Covid vaccine as early as August. pic.twitter.com/T4pRuVp7ND— Good Morning Britain (@GMB)
Israel has begun vaccinating children and so far no adverse effects have been reported, at least in 12- to 16-year-olds. Children also, of course, receive numerous jabs against other diseases with very low risk, including against MMR, HPV, flu and meningitis C.
