Children aged 12 and above must be prioritised for vaccination: ICMR

Body calls for reopening of schools in phased manner

Available evidence suggests that children aged 12 and above are at a high risk of contracting COVID-19 infection and must be prioritised for vaccination compared to younger children, said experts at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), adding that schools need to be reopened in a phased manner (beginning with primary schools followed by secondary schools) and allowed to remain open and safe with appropriate implementation of multi-layered mitigation measures where children’s participation remains essential.

An opinion piece titled ‘Reopening of schools during COVID-19 pandemic: A persistent dilemma’ published in the Indian Journal of Medical Research further adds that there is ample evidence to suggest that children aged 1-17 years have similar susceptibility to a mild form of SARS-CoV-2 infection as in adults. However, the risk of severe disease and mortality in children is less.

The fourth round of the National Serosurvey for COVID-19 held in June 2021 in India revealed that more than half of children aged between 6 and 17 were seropositive, which indicated that a considerable proportion of them had been infected with SARS-CoV-2.