A Covid-19 vaccine for children is expected to be available by September, said Priya Abraham, Director of Pune-based National Institute of Virology, the premier virology institute under the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), on Wednesday.
“At present, Phase II and III trials of Covaxin are going on for children in the age group of 2-18 years. Hopefully, the results are going to be available very soon. The results will be presented to the regulators. So, by September or just after it, we may have Covid-19 vaccines for children,” Abraham told India Science, an OTT channel of the science and technology department.
She further added that Zydus Cadila’s vaccine trial is ongoing and can be administered to children.
Booster dose
With regard to booster dose, Abraham said studies have been going on overseas and at least seven different vaccines have been tried out for it. She stated that currently the World Health Organisation (WHO) has put a stop to it till more countries catch up with vaccination, as there is an alarming vaccine gap between high-income and low-income countries.
However, she said that in the future, there will defenitely be recommendations for boosters.
On the possibility of a new testing method for Covid, Abraham said: “RT-PCR testing method is by itself only about 70 per cent sensitive. But it is still recommended by the WHO. But in the future we may see easier and quicker ‘point-of-care’ tests where we need not send samples to labs.”
Meanwhile, the country administered 41.37 lakh vaccinations on Wednesday and with this the total vaccine doses given so far stood at 56.47 crore. The government said that more than 57.88 crore vaccine doses have been provided to the States/UTs so far, through all sources and a further 18,62,530 doses are in the pipeline. Of this, the total consumption, including wastages is 55.11 crore doses. Also, more than 94 lakh balance and unutilised Covid vaccine doses are still available with the States/UTs and private hospitals.
Meanwhile, India’s daily Covid cases jumped to 35,178 Covid cases on Wednesday, with 440 deaths in the last 24 hours till 8:00 am, as per the Health Ministry data. The cases on Tuesday had come down to 25,166, lowest in about 25 days. Cumulatively, the country reported 3,22,85,857 infections, of which, the active caseload was at 3,67,415, recovered cases were 37,169 and the death toll stood at 4,32,519.