CNN
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The World Health Organization’s Vaccine Experts have revised their global Covid-19 vaccination recommendations. Healthy children and teenagers who are considered low priority may not need to be vaccinated.
According to the World Health Organization’s Strategic Advisory Group of Immunization Experts (SAGE), the updated roadmap is designed to prioritize Covid-19 vaccines for those at highest risk of death and serious illness It has been.
It is being issued to reflect the Omicron stage of the pandemic, and due to the country’s high herd immunity levels from vaccines and infections, the group announced after a recent meeting.
New streamlined recommendations focus on high-, medium-, and low-risk groups.
SAGE is recommended for high-priority groups such as the elderly, immunocompromised people of all ages, frontline health care workers, and pregnant women at 6 or 12 months after the last booster dose. A booster dose of the Covid-19 vaccine is recommended.
If the risk is moderate, the group recommends primary vaccination and an initial booster, but not routine boosters. This group includes children and adolescents at health risk and healthy adults under approximately 60 years of age.
For healthy children aged 6 months to 17 years, countries should consider vaccination based on factors such as disease burden and cost-effectiveness, the group said.
“The public health impact of immunization of healthy children and adolescents is much lower than the established benefits of traditional essential vaccines for children, such as rotavirus, measles and pneumococcal conjugate vaccines.” SAGE said in a press release.
The group said the vaccine guidance is based on the current epidemiological situation and may change if the pandemic progresses.
It also happens at a time when countries are making their own choices about vaccine recommendations based on vaccine supply and progress.
For example, US officials are considering whether to offer people at high risk of severe Covid-19 the chance to obtain another bivalent booster. We are starting to make bivalent boosters available.
Experts also acknowledge that there are competing health priorities when it comes to vaccination.
“As we all know, the Covid pandemic has taken a toll on immunization programs,” SAGE Chair Dr Hanna Nohynek said Tuesday.
“This is a tremendous effort and many countries are doing very well to reach high coverage, but there is still a need for efforts to reduce inequities and a need to reach high priority groups. Yes, we need to close the coverage gap.”
Nohynek said children need to catch up on routine vaccinations they missed during the Covid-19 pandemic.
She noted that measles cases were on the rise in all WHO regions, and that immunization programs around the world needed to be stepped up and recovered.Measles is a known ‘tracer’ , indicating the presence of other vaccine-preventable diseases in the community.
Polio is also endemic in some countries, and WHO vaccine advisors recommend improving immunization coverage and supplementing injectable polio vaccine in the event of a “sustained poliovirus epidemic”. is recommended.
