Covid vaccines for children by September: AIIMS chief Dr Randeep Guleria

New Delhi: India is likely to start vaccinating children by September, AIIMS chief Dr Randeep Guleria said on Saturday as he underlined that it will be an important move to break the chain of transmission.

"I think Zydus has already done the trials and they're waiting for the emergency authorisation. The Bharat Biotech's Covaxin trials should be over by August or September, and by that time we should get an approval. Pfizer vaccine has been already approved by the FDA (US regulator). Hopefully, by September, we should start vaccinating children, and that will be a big boost as far as breaking the chain of transmission is concerned," Dr Guleria said.

India has given over 42 crore doses of vaccines so far and inoculated nearly 6 per cent of its population while the government aims to vaccinate all adults by the end of this year. However, the country is yet to clear a vaccine for children amid concern over a third wave.

On Friday, the European medicines watchdog approved the use of Moderna's coronavirus vaccine for children aged 12-17. In May, the United States had authorised the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for children aged 12-15 years old.

"We need to get our own vaccines too - that's why both Bharat Biotech and Zydus are important. Getting the Pfizer vaccine will also be helpful, as there is enough data to suggest it's safe... but we can't be sure if we will get required numbers. We will hopefully have more than one vaccine for children by September," the AIIMS chief said.

A study published earlier this week by The Lancet, one of the world's oldest medical journals, underlined that "living with 11-17-year-olds increases the risk of infection by 18-30 per cent." Talking about it, Dr Guleria said: "It's an important issue. Vulnerable people - the elderly or those having illnesses - are at an increased risk of getting the infection (in such cases). That's one of the reasons why people are worried about children going to schools... they may get a mild infection, but they may pass it to their grandparents. We need more data, but this is something that has been shown even with influenza."