Vaccinating teachers holds key to opening schools, says WHO chief scientist

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Vaccinating teachers in India would be a big step forward to opening schools, just like other countries have done, once the transmission of Covid-19 infections comes down, WHO chief scientist Dr Soumya Swaminathan has said.</p>
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“I am very hopeful that ultimately we’ll have vaccines for children. But that’s not going to happen this year, and we should open schools when community transmission is down. That’s what the rest of the countries have done, with other precautions. And if teachers are vaccinated, that would be a big step forward,” Swaminathan said in an interview to CNN-News18.</p>
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<strong>Nasal vaccines</strong></p>
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“Some of the nasal vaccines that are going to be made in India could be game changers for children as they are easy to administer,” she said.</p>
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Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech is carrying out third phase clinical trials of its nasal vaccine against Covid-19.  Bharath Biotech’s joint managing director Suchitra Ella recently said at a CII event that nasal vaccines are more cost effective and efficient than that of intravenous injectable vaccines into the body. She said the BBV154 vaccine candidate is a novel adenovirus vectored intranasal vaccine and the results of first phase clinical trials conducted on 175 persons in 4 cities in India has been very much promising. The vaccine is likely to be launched in six months, she had claimed.</p>
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However, separate trials with children will have to be carried once the vaccine was proved to be safe and effective for adults. All this would take time.</p>
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Meanwhile the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) has given emergency authorization to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children aged 12 to 17. Reports in the US media state that the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are also likely to get the nod for trials in 12- to 17-year-olds.</p>
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At present schools are shut in India and children account for about 3-4 per cent of hospital admissions for Covid-19 which is about the same as the rest of the world, according to Niti Aayog (health) member VK Paul.</p>