A GROUP representing parents of children in Scotland suffering from long Covid have hit out at the decision only to vaccinate some over-12s with serious health conditions.

Helen Goss, of Long Covid Kids Scotland, said she is “baffled” by the advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation to limit offering the jab to only children regarded as most vulnerable.

Goss, whose eight-year-old daughter Anna has been diagnosed with Long Covid after contracting the virus last year, said the decision left many children and young people vulnerable at time when more under-19s were being hospitalised after testing positive with the infection.

“It makes no sense to me. Why are we not protecting the kids? Children are getting more sick from the Delta variant than the original variants. They need protection too – just like grown ups.

“They can still get Long Covid, they can still get very poorly. The harsh reality is, we are exposing them to a brand new virus which we don’t know very much about.”

She added: “It’s baffling to me that all children over 12 are not to be offered the vaccine.”

The JCVI has ruled out mass vaccination of healthy children for now but has updated its advice to enable 12 to 15-year-olds with specific underlying health conditions to receive the Pfizer vaccination.

The JCVI said one of the reasons they advised against offering the jags to all children over 12 was that there was a risk of heart inflammation in around one in 20,000 after a Pfizer jab making the risk too great when one or two in a million children had died of Covid-19.

They also said that the wider benefits in controlling the pandemic by preventing transmission to adults were “highly uncertain” and the evidence about children’s risk from Long Covid too scant for that to weigh in the decision.

At the Scottish Government’s briefing yesterday on the pandemic, the First Minister said vaccinating all younger teenagers against coronavirus should not be ruled out.

Scotland’s top doctor is set to write to the JCVI urging it to keep the issue under review.

Nicola Sturgeon said Scotland’s chief medical officer Dr Gregor Smith will be writing to the JCVI to highlight the benefits of vaccinating everyone over the age of 12.

Goss, who lives in Aberdeenshire, said she was heartened by Smith’s decision to write to the JCVI and hoped it would lead to the body to review its decision.

She told The National: “I do appreciate the Scottish Government are in a very difficult position.

“I was really encouraged to hear the First Minister say that Dr Gregor Smith is to write to the JCVI asking for why all over-12s can’t be vaccinated.

“I will be keeping a very close eye on what the JCVI say.”