SII vaccines for children

Children in India should be vaccinated with the Covovax coronavirus vaccine, and not Covishield, chief executive officer of Serum Institute of India (SII) Adar Poonawalla was quoted by NDTV on November 30, 2021. Expected to be available in six months, Poonawalla stated: "Trials are on... No safety issues so far… We have gone down to the age of seven (with) good results.
"Our approach will be to vaccinate children right down to the age of two with Covovax,” he said, adding there is "a lot of stock of Covovax” and that these would be available in India and to the world on receipt of regulatory approvals.

Representational image of a child being vaccinated Photo: Wikipedia

"Covovax, which is called Novavax in the US and select European markets, is seeing delays worldwide in regulatory procedural approvals, so there are some delays in the vaccine being released for India’s vaccination drive,” Poonawalla explained. "For now, we do not want Indians to get stuck with Covovax as it has not got approvals worldwide for travel purposes. So, adults should take Covishield as it is acceptable worldwide,” he added.
When cleared, SII’s Covovax (or Novavax) will be the third vaccine for kids in India. So far it has been trialed on children in two groups — between two and 11, and 12 and 17 — according to NDTV. In August 2021 the Drugs Controller General of India approved Zydus Cadila’s three-dose vaccine ZyCoV-D for use on children over the age of 12. And in October, Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin became the second vaccine approved for kids (between the ages of two and 18) in India.