The Chief Scientist of the World Health Organization (WHO) Soumya Swaminathan on Tuesday remarked that there is no evidence to date that can prove that healthy children or healthy adolescents require booster doses to get extra protection from COVID-19. She was briefing a press conference about vaccine immunity. She said there is more research to be done to understand the requirement of a booster dose. There is no study that can tell us whether any specific age group requires a COVID booster or not.
Meanwhile many countries are looking forward to offering booster doses to children aged from 12 to 15. Recently, India has started booster doses to people aged above 60 and stated vaccine doses to children aged from 15 to 18. India is also looking forward to vaccine doses for children aged above 12 from March onwards.
COVID Boosters in other countries
India has just started administering boosters to the age group of 60 and above. The major reason for this delay is the huge population of the country. Recently, India has successfully administered 150 crore doses of COVID. Israel has completed vaccine doses for kids and teenagers. Now they are even offering booster doses to 12 years or above children. United States Food and Drug Administration has already started booster dose (third dose) of Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine for 12-15 years children.
Germany has become the latest nation to allow booster shot to children to 12 to 17 years of children. Hungary and many other nations have started the same already. Soumya Swaminathan also stated that the top group of experts of WHO will meet later this week to consider a few questions about the process of administering boosters by country to their populations. “The aim is to protect the most vulnerable, to protect those at highest risk of severe disease and death. Those are our elderly populations, immuno-compromised people with underlying conditions, but also healthcare workers,” she said.