{"id":49270,"date":"2021-12-04T18:32:17","date_gmt":"2021-12-04T13:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kashmir.today\/covid-vaccination-for-children-crucial-as-omicron-spreads-doctors-association-kashmir\/"},"modified":"2021-12-04T18:32:17","modified_gmt":"2021-12-04T13:02:17","slug":"covid-vaccination-for-children-crucial-as-omicron-spreads-doctors-association-kashmir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/?p=49270","title":{"rendered":"Covid vaccination for children crucial as Omicron spreads: Doctors Association Kashmir"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Srinagar, Dec 04:<\/strong> With omicron appearing to spread much faster than previous strains of the virus, Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) on Saturday called for vaccinating children against Covid-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAmid Omicron variant threat Covid vaccination for children becomes crucial,\u201d said DAK President and Influenza expert Dr Nisar ul Hassan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cUp until now, Covid-19 has caused mild symptoms in children. But in South Africa where Omicron variant is now dominant strain, there has been increase in hospital admissions among young kids,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The DAK President said the country is seeing a rise in severe Covid infections in children under 5 years of age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cResearchers believe lack of vaccination among children may be the result of increase in hospitalization,\u201d he said<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThat makes Covid vaccine vitally important for children,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dr Nisar said children were not affected severely by the Covid pandemic in the past. Now we are seeing sharp increase in cases particularly in young kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWhile most of the elderly and adults have been vaccinated, children have not been included in the vaccination drive yet,\u201d he said adding it is unjust to allow kids to take on great burdens during the pandemic but not give them the opportunity to benefit from a vaccine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Spokesperson DAK Dr Riyaz Ahmad Dagga said vaccinating children will protect them from getting Covid and can also help keep them from getting seriously sick even if they do get Covid-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cCovid-19 vaccine is required for children to return to classrooms and is important for ensuring safe learning environment in schools,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">General Secretary DAK Dr Arshad Ali said pediatric vaccine would not only help children, but it will be the basis of eventually eliminating Covid-19 in our population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe won\u2019t be able to defeat Covid-19 until children are vaccinated. It is hard to beat the pandemic without vaccinating children who constitute nearly 40 percent of the population,\u201d he said<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cMany countries have already started vaccinating children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">India, too, has two indigenous vaccines, approved for use in children.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWhile ZyCoV-D has received emergency use authorization in children aged 12-18 years, Covaxin has been recommended for use in children aged 2 to 18 years in October,\u201d he added<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Srinagar, Dec 04: With omicron appearing to spread much faster than previous strains of the virus, Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) on Saturday called for vaccinating children against Covid-19. \u201cAmid Omicron variant threat Covid vaccination for children becomes crucial,\u201d said DAK President and Influenza expert Dr Nisar ul Hassan. \u201cUp until now, Covid-19 has caused mild [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48266,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-union-territory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49270\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}