Experts call for vaccinating the vulnerable around the world and not healthy children in developed countries

Dominic Wilkinson, Ilora Finlay and Andrew Pollard argue that for a health system to offer any vaccine to a child, two fundamental ethical questions must be asked. First, do the benefits outweigh the risks? Second, if the vaccine is scarce, does anyone need it more?

"Careful attention to both questions suggests that we should not yet extend vaccination against Covid-19 to otherwise healthy children," they argue.

The authors acknowledge that In older adults, the benefits of vaccines clearly outweigh the rare side effects. And in children with certain chronic or severe acute diseases they probably do, and these children should therefore have access to the vaccine. "But in otherwise healthy children, no one can currently be sure.", they insist.

But they say one thing we can be sure of is that some people are currently at much higher risk of contracting the coronavirus than healthy children. "AND "most low-income countries have fully vaccinated less than 5% of their community", they fence.

"Some might ask, why do we have to choose? Can't we vaccinate children the same as those abroad? But, to put it simply, right now there are a limited number of vaccine doses. As adults, we have had to wait our turn for the vaccine. We have understood that, given its scarcity, Vaccine priority must be given to people at highest risk of death. This clear and inescapable ethic now applies to our children. Their turn will come, but not yet," they insist.

However, Lisa Forsberg and Anthony Skelton claim that vaccinating children against covid-19 protects them and others from the risk of harm and death from the infection, and that "it is the best way to promote the well-being of children by minimizing the need for restrictions or disruptions to their lives arising from failure to adequately manage the spread of infection."

In this context, they state that "the argument that children are less likely to suffer serious harm from infection and that they therefore benefit less from a vaccine that protects them from it is wrong."

"Exposes children to unknown risks of serious illness and long-term health complications. Furthermore, we now know that exposing children to these risks disproportionately harms already disadvantaged children," they argue.

Another argument for delaying vaccination of children is that Priority must be given to older adults in developing countries, where vaccine supply is limited. However, these authors point out that currently "the global vaccine shortage is the result of political decisions."

"The ethically defensible option is to exert all possible pressure to minimize hoarding of vaccines and distribute them to developing countries, while releasing patents and allowing the manufacturing and supply of vaccines on a larger scale, to allow the vaccination of adults and children around the world," they justify.

Thus, they believe that accepting the "austerity" narrative that children must wait until the most vulnerable people in other countries can be vaccinated diverts attention from the real problem: that profits are valued over lives. "Here, as in other places, we are failing to fulfill our responsibilities to avoid aggravating existing injustice," they conclude.