MEDICAL experts are set to recommend that all 16-and-17-year-olds are offered a Covid vaccine.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) is “imminently” expected to recommend extending the vaccination programme, in the hope offering the vaccine could reduce transmission of the virus and limit disruption in schools.

Under existing guidance, some children aged 12 to 17 have been eligible for the jab if they have underlying health conditions, but the new advice is expected to roll out vaccinations for all 16-and-17-year-olds.

Currently, the JCVI advises that children “at increased risk of serious Covid-19 disease are offered the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine”.

This includes children aged 12 to 16 with severe neurodisabilities, Down’s syndrome, immunosuppression and multiple or severe disabilities.

The advice adds: “The JCVI also recommends that children and young people aged 12 to 17 who live with an immunosuppressed person should be offered the vaccine.

“This is to indirectly protect their immunosuppressed household contacts, who are at higher risk of serious disease from Covid-19 and may not generate a full immune response to vaccination.”

Under the current advice, young people aged 16 to 17 with underlying health conditions should be offered vaccination, but “the JCVI is not currently advising routine vaccination of children outside of these groups, based on current evidence”.

A Department of Health spokesman said: "We continue to keep the vaccination of children and young people under review and will be guided by the advice of the independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation."