Adolescents Can Get Vaccinated In Coming Four Weeks
A timely move has been taken for the protection of adolescents from the third wave of COVID-19. They are likely to get immunized by the ZyCoV-D vaccine in the coming four weeks. According to Dr Renu Swarup, Secretary of Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, different researchers is going on for children of the age group of 5 to 12 years and below.
Sanctions
The Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) sanctioned the Zydus Cadila’s DNA vaccine for the third wave-emergency of COVID-19 for children aged 12 years and above. In recent times, a panel of experts of the National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM) had warned for taking precautions and be cautious of the upcoming third wave of COVID-19 around October month.
About vaccine
According to Renu Swarup, this is the Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) vaccine that has been sanctioned for emergency use for adolescents of age group from 12 to 18 years and above to combat the third wave of COVID-19.
The vaccination drive for adults from 18 years and above is going very well. Now, vaccination is required for such age groups. Also, the research has been going on for the immunization of the age group of 5-12 years.
The permission had been granted to Bharat's Biotech vaccine which is for children of 5 years and above. Likewise, Hyderabad-based company Biological E is still conducting its phase 3 trials of COVID-19 vaccination. Nowadays, it is executing its phase 2 and phase 3 vaccination for which it had been approved to conduct child vaccination trials earlier.
Plans
The vaccine of ZyCoV-D had just received emergency authorization for its use by evaluation of the third wave of COVID-19. The vaccination is going to take four weeks for coming into the market. The entire vaccination drive will be taken by the National Immunization Technical Advisory Group (NTAGI) working group on COVID-19.
The members of the group will be deciding that how much would be the volume of vaccines available for children. Since this is a new and emerging platform which will be taking time for its scale-up. Also, the schedule of dosage of vaccine by category wise will be decided and guided by the NTAGI working group as how further vaccination will be implemented for kids.
“Most of the developers of vaccines are working but it will take time while it is quite difficult to say when. They are already working on it but this vaccine is for 12 years and above. It is a better development and will be going to make a major difference,” stated Renu Swarup, Secretary of Department of Biotechnology, Government of India.
