18 Aug Should we vaccinate children against COVID-19?

Phoebe Roth asked 5 experts

Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) recently announced provisional approval for the Pfizer vaccine to be used in 12-15-year-olds.

We learned on Monday that the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) has advised that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children aged 12-15, those who live in remote communities, and those with underlying medical conditions should be prioritised to receive the jab.

With COVID vaccination for kids being such a hot topic, we asked five experts whether we should vaccinate children in Australia against COVID-19.

Four out of five experts said yes

Here are their detailed responses:

Disclosures:

Asha Bowen is co-chair of the Australian and New Zealand Paediatric Infectious Diseases (ANZPID) group of the Australasian Society of Infectious Diseases. She receives research funding from NHMRC.

Catherine Bennett has received NHMRC and MRFF funding, and is an independent expert on the AstraZeneca advisory board.

Julian Savulescu receives funding from the Wellcome Trust. This work was supported by the UKRI/AHRC funded UK Ethics Accelerator project, grant number AH/V013947/1.

Margie Danchin is a member of ATAGI’s working group on vaccine safety, evaluation, monitoring and confidence.

Nicholas Wood holds an NHMRC Career Development Fellowship and Churchill Fellowship.

Phoebe Roth, Deputy Editor, Health+Medicine, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.