A few days before the start of the school year, pressure is mounting on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI), the British vaccination committee, to recommend vaccination against Covid-19 for 12-15 year olds in the United Kingdom. This independent and well-respected body is still reluctant to give the green light, arousing the astonishment of a growing number of experts and the impatience of Boris Johnson’s government. The United Kingdom is now several weeks behind most other Western countries, some of which, like the United States, have launched vaccination campaigns for adolescents in the spring (against mid-June in France).
Invited on the Sky News channel at the end of August, the professor of pediatrics Adam Finn, member of the JCVI, explains that the committee chose a “Very cautious approach” concerning the vaccination of children, but that he “Constantly reviewing the latest studies and evidence”. The committee has certainly paved the way for the vaccination of under-16s from December 2020, but in very specific cases – particularly adolescents suffering from “Severe neurological disabilities”. Posted on July 19, a new notice limited its recommendation to over 12s “At risk of complications” virus-related or ” in touch “ with immunodeficient people.
On August 4, new recommendation from the committee: 16-17 year olds are eligible but for now, “A first dose” Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine (the only one authorized, the Astra-Zeneca vaccine being reserved for over 40s). Any decision on a more massive deployment will be made “Without haste”, commented Mr. Finn on August 23. To justify its extreme caution, the JCVI insists on “Rare” side effects (inflammation of the myocardium and pericardium) seen especially after a second injection of messenger RNA vaccine in young patients. He also stresses that children and adolescents have very little risk of falling seriously ill from the coronavirus. As for the benefits of vaccination of children to protect adults from hospitalization following contamination, it is considered “Very uncertain” at this stage.
“We are wasting precious time”
Same reluctance, until now, concerning the third vaccine doses for adults. The committee had still not validated, Thursday, August 26, the systematic administration of “boosters” to the elderly, some of its members believing that it should be reserved for the most fragile. These positions contrast with the astonishing audacity shown by the committee, at the end of 2020, by being one of the very first in the world to recommend vaccination with the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine, then with the Oxford-AstraZeneca. Earlier this year, he aroused the disbelief of many European experts by advising a gap of twelve weeks between inoculation of the first and second doses of vaccine. The bet – to provide as many Britons as possible with minimal immunity in the context of a second pandemic wave and vaccine shortage – has finally paid off.
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