Measles Vaccine Effective Against Covid in Children: Pune Study

The most concerning thing about the possibility of third-wave hitting the country is that many medical and health experts have said that the kids will be affected by it, this time. Many studies have shown that children will be the vulnerable ones during the third wave. Amidst all this, a glimmer of hope was seen after researchers shared that the measles vaccine is good for kids during Covid19 time.

According to the experts, kids who were vaccinated with the measles vaccine showed milder symptoms when contracting Covid19. But those who didn’t get the vaccine had the usual severe symptoms. This study was conducted by Pune based BJ Medical College.

The study showed that the measles vaccine is 87.5 per cent effective against coronavirus. Measles-containing vaccines (MCVs) might help in this fight to protect the kids. It might offer long term protection to the children.

A total of 548 children aged between 1 to17, participated in the study. Among these were two groups of kids – children that tested Covid19 positive and other group comprising of children who didn’t test positive. Talking about the kids that tested positive, among them, those kids that were immunized with the Measles vaccine, showed lesser and milder COVID symptoms when compared to the unvaccinated ones.

Also Read: AIIMS Delhi to Begin Paediatric clinical Trials of Bharat Biotech's Covaxin

This study was later published in the peer-reviewed journal Human Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics. To further confirm their study and its findings, the researchers will conduct more trials. Paediatrician Dr Nilesh Gujar who was part of the study shared that their study indicated that the Measles vaccine can be effective against Covid in kids. He added that they will have to further test the results and hence more trials will be conducted.

Currently, India is running vaccine trials for kids. Bharat Biotech received approval from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) on May 11. After that AIIMS Patna started the Paediatric clinical trial of Covaxin. They are conducting the trials for kids between 12 to 18 years of ages. Following this, a trial for 6-12 and 2-6 years will be conducted.