'Vaccinating children still debatable': ICMR Director claims 'need more relevant data'

The Union Health Ministry on Friday said that at present there is only one country that is giving COVID-19 vaccines to children. While addressing a press conference on behalf of the Union Health Ministry, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Director-General Dr. Balram Bhargava stated that it is still not clear that very small children should be vaccinated or not and until relevant data is available, children will not be inoculated at large.

'More data needed on children vaccination': Dr Bhargava

"There is only one country that is giving vaccines to children at the moment. Whether very small children will ever need vaccines, is still a question. Till such time, we have more data on vaccination of children, we would not be in a position to vaccinate children at large," said ICMR director.

'Study on children aged b/w 2 to 18 years started by Health ministry': Dr Bhargava

Dr Bhargava informed that the ministry has started a study on children aged between 2 to 18 years and the results will be out by September. Whether children should be inoculated is still a matter of debate as some complications were witnessed in the United States, he added.

"However, we have started a small study on children b/w the age of 2-18 yrs & we shall have results of that by Sept or so. However, int'l jury is still not out & they're still debating whether children need to be vaccinated. We've seen some complications in the US [sic]," said Dr Balram Bhargava.

ICMR Director-General also informed that pregnant women can be vaccinated against COVID-19 as per the Health Ministry guidelines. 

50 cases of Delta Plus variant in India

During the press conference, the Director of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) Dr SK Singh informed that a total of 50 cases of Delta Plus variant of COVID-19 coronavirus have been detected in the country so far.

Dr Singh added that Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab, Telangana & West Bengal are the eight states where more than 50% of the variant of concern have been found. Delta Plus or AY.1 will always remain a variant of concern (VoC) as it is mutated from the Delta variant (B.1.617.2), which is also a VoC, he added.

COVID-19 cases in India

As per the Union Health Ministry, India reported 51,667 new COVID-19 cases, 64,527 recoveries, and 1,329 deaths in the last 24 hours. The Joint Secretary of the Union Health Ministry Lav Agarwal informed that the recovery rate has increased to 96.7 per cent.

• Total cases: 3,01,34,445
• Total recoveries: 2,91,28,267
• Death toll: 3,93,310
• Active cases: 6,12,868
• Total vaccination: 30,79,48,744

(Image Credits: PTI/ANI/UNSPALSH)