Teachers should be prioritised for Covid-19 vaccine: Unicef

The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) has said teachers should be prioritised to receive the Covid-19 vaccine, once frontline health personnel and high-risk population are vaccinated.

"This will help protect teachers from the virus, allow them to teach in person, and ultimately keep schools open," said Unicef Executive Director Henrietta Fore in a statement today.

The longer children remain out of school, the less likely they are to return, and the more difficult it is for their parents to resume work, Fore added.

"These are difficult decisions that force difficult tradeoffs. But what should not be difficult is the decision to do everything in our power to safeguard the future of the next generation. This begins by safeguarding those responsible for opening that future up for them."

Fore said the Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on children's education around the globe and vaccinating teachers is a critical step towards putting it back on track.

"While that number has dropped since, there continues to be an unsupported assumption that closing schools may slow the spread of the disease, despite increasing evidence that schools are not a main driver of community transmission," he said.