In India , trials of homegrown vaccines are being conducted in children
MIS-C patients .
“ It ’ s likely that that chain of events may also develop in this new syndrome , so it ’ s important to monitor those children who are developing these cardiac complications , whether the heart disease completely resolves or if there are lingering complications as a consequence . Often these things take years to manifest so it ’ s important to take a close check on it ,” he added .
This is especially important because it ’ s unlikely that COVID-19 is going to go away completely . Even when a small fraction of children infected by SARS- CoV-2 develop the new syndrome , it ’ s probable that MIS-C will persist indefinitely .
As fears of a third wave of COVID-19 spread across India , trials of its homegrown vaccines , Covaxin and Zydus , are being conducted on children . The Covaxin trial is taking place on 525 subjects at a number of sites across the nation , while Zydus ’ trial is expected to end within a matter of weeks .
“ Hopefully in the next few weeks , maybe we will have enough data on the view whether that vaccine can be given to children ,” government health advisor VK Paul said at a health ministry briefing in early June .
“ We have to understand that the child cohort is not a small cohort . My rough guess is that if it ’ s between 12 to 18 years , this itself is about 130 to 140 million people , and for which we will need about 250 to 260 million doses ,” Paul said .
The conclusion of these trials cannot come quickly enough , as virologists say that to minimise the impact of a third wave , India should be vaccinating between eight and ten million people every day . Only about one million adults are currently receiving jabs daily .
According to some estimates , if India continues at this low vaccination rate , the country could see one million daily infections , with more cases of MIS-C bound to follow , assuming a third wave hits . n
GlobalHealthAsiaPacific . com JUNE 2021
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