Inoculating kids could be key to herd immunity: experts
Inoculating children could be key to achieving herd immunity, experts say
Vaccinating B.C. kids could be key to putting COVID-19 to bed, according to some experts.
With mass vaccination on the horizon, there are questions about how the province's youngest residents fit into the plan.
While the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are not yet approved for use with youths, clinical trials are underway to test their safety and efficacy in children as young as 12, said Fawziah Lalji, a professor in the faculty of pharmaceutical sciences at the University of B.C.
“It's likely that by fall we will have some data on children,” she explained.
That could eventually lead to kids being included in vaccination plans, which will help B.C. get to the 70 per cent vaccination threshold many believe is needed for herd immunity.
Lalji said clinical trials typically progress to younger and younger age groups, with adolescents given test vaccines before children in the six-to-12 range, and then those who are younger. But before the vaccines can be given to kids in B.C., Health Canada must review the data from the pharmaceutical companies and, if they are satisfied with it, change the indication for use to include children.
Lalji said provincial health officers, including Dr. Bonnie Henry, will be part of those discussions. After approval, medical health officers in B.C.'s various health authorities will also be involved as the province adjusts its vaccination plan.
Statistics from the B.C. Centre for Disease Control from the beginning of the pandemic to Feb. 13 show that while no children in B.C. have died from COVID-19, there have been 3,246 cases in kids under 10, 40 hospitalizations, and three cases that required admission to an intensive care unit. Similarly, there have been 7,028 cases in children age 10 to 19, 31 hospitalizations, and three cases that required admission to intensive care.
B.C.'s current vaccination plan includes youth as young as 16 who are “clinically extremely vulnerable” in Phase 3, which is scheduled for April to June, and young people age 18 to 24 at the end of Phase 4, which is scheduled for July to September.
In comments Thursday about the number of people in their 30s who have died from COVID-19, Henry said “we've seen hospitalizations in young people and we've seen, sadly and tragically, deaths in young people, particularly in the last few weeks.”
Vaccinating kids will be important in the fight against COVID -19 for several reasons, said Julie Bettinger, an investigator at the Vaccine Evaluation Centre at B.C. Children's Hospital.
“Children can get sick with COVID, so it is important in terms of protecting the child,” she said, adding scientists still don't have a “good sense” of the long-term health implications of COVID-19 infection. Vaccinating children could also be important for achieving herd immunity. While it is still unclear exactly what role children play in COVID transmission, she pointed to examples of other vaccines, including the pneumococcal vaccine, which led to reduced infections in adults when it was given to kids.
Bettinger, who is also a professor at UBC's school of population and public health, is the lead investigator in a massive study tracking any potential adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccines.
The Canadian National Vaccine Safety Network is seeking 400,000 participants, both vaccinated and unvaccinated, per vaccine across Canada to complete a web-based survey.
Education will be important to ensure parents choose to get their children vaccinated, said Ran Goldman, a UBC professor in the department of pediatrics.
In a study at the beginning of the pandemic, Goldman and other researchers found that many parents may have been willing to accept less rigorous testing and expedited approval of the COVID -19 vaccine.
The international study surveyed more than 2,500 families from Canada, Israel, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the United States who visited 17 different emergency departments between the end of March to the end of June.
“While the safety of vaccines given to children is paramount, our study indicates that parents are eager to vaccinate their children against COVID-19, and many are supportive of expedited vaccine research development and regulatory approval,” Goldman said at the time.
A year into the pandemic, the professor believes parents are more likely to be reassured about vaccine safety.
“I think parents want the best for their children, and more people see vaccines as the way to get to the post-COVID era,” he said.