Covid-19 has to be one of the most devastating things to hit humans in the recent past. It has brought several waves of death, fear, panic, and frailty due to the virus. And due to mutation, new variants keep cropping up at regular intervals. Apart from taking utmost precautions, getting vaccines is our best armor against the virus.
The Indian government has decided to allow vaccine shots for 15 year olds and above. The most obvious question that parents have is, how safe are the vaccines, and should I vaccinate my kid? Here is everything that you need to know about Covid Vaccines for your kids.
Available Vaccines:
The Indian government made Covid vaccines available for children between 15-18 years of age on the 3rd of January 2022.
The Drug Controller General India or DCGI has authorized two vaccines to be given to 12 year olds and older kids. Covaxin by Bharat Biotech and Zycov-D by Zydus Cadila are the only two vaccines that have received the nod from the DCGI to be administered to kids above 12 years. However, the current directive by the government is to vaccinate children between 15 and 18 years of age.
There are a few other vaccines that are waiting to receive their authorization from the DCGI. These are Covovax by Serum Institute and a couple of vaccines that are made in the United States, Moderna, Johnson, and Johnson.
Are they Safe?
Before getting the nod to be administered to children, the vaccines undergo several trial phases. These trials are to ensure the efficacy of the vaccines in children and to ensure they are safe. The trials collect and analyze data on effectiveness, adverse effects, impacts on immunity, and so on.
The data that is available currently from Moderna, Covaxin, and Pfizer shows that the trials have had minor instances of adverse effects in children. It is common for most vaccines to show such behavior.
There have been some rare instances where the trials have reported adverse effects like blood clots, inflammatory syndromes, heart-related issues, and anaphylactic reactions. But they are far and few. And in general, the benefits far outweigh these rare instances.
Since most of the vaccine trials started only in 2020, there aren’t any long-term data on the efficacy and safety of the vaccines.
Side Effects of Vaccines:
The side effects of administering a covid vaccine majorly depend on the type of vaccine that is administered. However, there are a few common symptoms that have been observed for the Covid vaccines. These include swelling of the injection site, dizziness, nausea, body ache, fever, vomiting, abdominal pain, etc. However, most of these symptoms resolve in 48 hours.
After getting the vaccines, children must still wear their masks. Since there isn’t a lot of data available on the efficacy and safety in long term, using masks and maintaining social distancing is still highly recommended. The vaccines will help in reducing the transmission of the virus and the anxiety surrounding it.
