COVID-19: Clinically vulnerable children will be offered COVID vaccines – but most adolescents will not | UK News

Clinically vulnerable children and those living with at-risk adults will be offered a COVID-19 vaccine – but not most adolescents, Nadhim Zahawi said.

The Minister of Vaccines told MPs that the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JVCI) recommended that children “at increased risk of serious illness from COVID-19” be offered the coronavirus vaccine, and that the government heed this advice.

This means that children aged 12 to 15 with severe neurological disorders, Down syndrome, immunosuppression, and multiple or severe learning disabilities will be offered the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

Children of the same age group who live with an immunocompromised person will also be offered the vaccine, Zahawi said.

But the government will not offer all healthy teens a coronavirus vaccine just yet because JVCI does not advise it.

The JVCI said it made the decision because “the evidence shows that COVID-19 rarely causes serious illness in children without underlying health problems” and that “the minimal health benefits of providing the universal COVID-19 vaccination to children does not outweigh the potential risks “.

However, healthy children who are within three months of their 18th birthday will be allowed to receive the vaccine “to ensure proper absorption in 18-year-olds.”

Newly appointed Health Secretary Sajid Javid said JVCI “will consider whether to recommend vaccination of under 18s without underlying health problems at a future date.”

JVCI had considered whether children should be immunized and recently advised the government on the matter for ministers to consider.

Medicines and Health Products Regulations …