World Health Organization (WHO) Chief Scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan said there is no evidence currently available to support giving COVID-19 vaccine booster doses for healthy children or adolescents.
Swaminathan, an Indian pediatrician and clinical scientist, acknowledged there is evidence of waning immunity overtime against the Omicron COVID-19 variant, which is highly contagious but has been less severe than previous variants. More research needs to be done to establish who needs booster doses, she said.
WHO’s advisory group, the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE), will meet later this week to discuss how countries should provide COVID-19 vaccine boosters, she told reporters.
“The aim is to protect the most vulnerable, to protect those at highest risk of severe disease and dying. Those are our elderly populations, immunocompromised, people with underlying conditions, but also healthcare workers,“ she said, adding later, ”Our focus, considering that we still have so many unvaccinated people in the world, is to vaccinate, provide primary doses to those who have not been vaccinated so far.”
Countries that have begun offering boosters to children or adolescents include Israel, the United States, Germany, and Hungary.
The United States’ drug regulator, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, in early January 2022 authorized a booster shot of Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine for children aged 12–15 for emergency use.
