Covid Indian variant: Evidence virus poses bigger risk to children – ‘could be disastrous’

Concerns have been rising over the spread of the Indian Covid variant, particular in Bolton – currently the most infected place in the country. And it seems the spike in cases has been driven by school age children. Figures from the end of last week show rates among five to nine year olds and 10 to 14 year olds were the highest recorded rates for both age groups, making up a third of all cases in Bolton.

The infection rate was 600.4 cases per 100,000 across the whole five to 14 age range for the week ending May 14.

This was double Bolton’s rate of 301.5 and almost double the previous highest rate for that age group – 318.1 on November 6.

“The emerging evidence is certainly suggesting strongly that the Indian variant of the virus poses a far greater risk to children than any of the previous strains,” Hussain Abdeh, Clinical Director and Superintendent Pharmacist of Medicine Direct, told Express Health.

He added: “The Indian variant is by far the most contagious strain of COVID we have seen in the UK to date.”

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As a precaution, Abdeh said it would be wise to reintroduce remote learning until there’s more information regarding how effective the current UK vaccines are against the highly contagious Indian Variant.

He continued: “Last year, children were among the largest carrier groups for the virus, but this posed a greater threat to the adults they came into contact with.

“If the Indian variant takes a firm hold in the UK, it could be disastrous to have more than 20 children from different households in the same room as each other.

“All it would take would be for one person to develop symptoms and it could pose a serious health risk to an entire school.”

Singapore recently made the decision to shift all primary, secondary and junior colleges to full home-based learning.

Singapore’s Health Minister One Ye Kung said the decision was made because the B1617 strain (the Indian variant) appeared to affect children more.

He said: “I did speak with him (Director of Medical Services, Kenneth Mak) before coming to this press conference.

“He did mention it will appear the B1617 strain appears to affect children more.

“So you’ll notice that for schools the response has been different compared to say last year.

“So once we detect infection, but outside of school, the Ministry of Education (MOE) has been very fast actually to put the school on home-based learning for the next few days and test the entire school.

“So that is also a precaution that has been put in recently in view of the different behaviour of this strain of virus.”

But UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson confirmed on Wednesday the Covid vaccines are effective against this strain of the virus, including the Indian variant.

Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions he said: “We have increasing confidence that vaccines are effective against all variants including the Indian variant.”

A recent study showed the AstraZeneca vaccine to be 97 percent effective against the Indian variant.

Research published by the Indraprastha Apollo Hospital in Delhi, involved nearly 3,300 people in India and discovered only two hospitalisations with Covid.

The participants were vaccinated with the AstraZeneca jab and they worked in healthcare.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) also said last week the Covid vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech and Modern appear to be effective against the Indian variant.

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