Kids with comorbidities to get Covid-19 vaccine first, says Karnataka health minister

Out of the 53,82,106 children screened in the state till September 15 as part of the Arogya Nandana programme, 7,259 kids were found to have severe acute malnutrition.

A whopping 1,05,150 kids had moderate acute malnutrition, 1,759 had diabetes, 150 had chronic liver disease, 371 had chronic lung disease, 585 had chronic kidney failure, 338 had blood disorders and 48 had cancer.

Health Minister K Sudhakar said based on the list of comorbidities that the Centre publishes, these kids with comorbidities will be first in line for the Covid vaccine once it becomes available for 12-to 17-year-olds. The state’s aim is to screen 1.5 crore children in Karnataka.

Zydus Cadila’s ZyCoV-D, the world’s first Plasmid DNA vaccine for Covid-19, is the only vaccine approved by the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) for emergency use in children aged 12 years and above.

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“We are undertaking the Arogya Nandana programme to identify comorbidities among children,” the minister said.

“The clinical trials of Covovax (developed by American company Novavax) among children are ongoing in India. Bharat Biotech’s nasal vaccine is also under trial and it includes children too,” he said.

The highest number of children with kidney failure has so far been found in Chitradurga district (189).

Districts that have high number of kids suffering from other ailments are: Raichur district, which has 1,447 diabetic children, Chikkamagaluru has 55 kids with chronic liver disease, 109 kids have chronic lung disease in Kalaburagi district, Yadgir district has 48 children suffering from blood disorders like thalassemia and sickle cell anaemia and 14 children in Haveri district have cancer.

Belagavi district has screened the highest number of children under the programme so far with a coverage of 14,04,414 kids, followed by Haveri (7,59,156), and Koppal (4,03,354).

As far as Bengaluru is concerned, the screening has been relatively slower with BBMP having screened only 25,467 kids so far.

Bengaluru Urban district has screened 75,420 kids and Bengaluru Rural district 68,499.

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