Pfizer Vaccine Reduces Risk of Long COVID in Pediatric Patients
Authors concluded that that the benefit of the vaccine in preventing long COVID is due mainly to the fact it mitigates the risk of infection.
Pfizer’s BNT162b2 COVID-19 vaccine was effective at reducing the risk of long COVID in pediatric patients during the Delta and Omicron periods of the pandemic, according to new research data published in the journal eClinicalMedicine.1 The authors said the findings show the importance of vaccination in public health.
Pfizer Vaccine Reduces Risk of Long COVID in Pediatric Patients / diy13 - stock.adobe.com
In the United States, an estimated 17 million adults have long COVID. That number has stayed relatively steady for the past year.2 Nearly 80% of adults with the condition report that it limits their activity either a lot or a little. Although 5% to 10% of adults in the country may continue to experience the condition at any point, research seeking to improve its diagnosis and treatment continues to lag.
READ MORE: Younger, Middle-Aged Adults Face Higher Burden of Neurologic Long COVID Symptoms
“The efficacy and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines in preventing symptomatic and severe COVID-19 has been assessed through randomized controlled trials and subsequent observational vaccine-effectiveness studies,” the authors wrote. “ However, our understanding of how a COVID-19 vaccine administered prior to infection impacts long COVID outcomes is still unclear.”
Investigators from the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Pennsylvania conducted a study to investigate if pre-infection vaccination can mitigate the risk of long COVID beyond the established protective benefits against a SARS-CoV-2 infection. Data for the study was gathered from the RECOVER PCORnet electronic health record program and was part of the Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) Initiative.
The study constructed 3 different cohorts: adolescents aged 12 to 20 years during the Delta phase from July to November 2021; and children aged 5 to 11 years and adolescents during the Omicron phase from January to November 2022. The study included 112590 adolescents in the Delta variant analysis, and 188894 children and 84735 adolescents in the Omicron variant analysis. Of those, 88811 adolescents were vaccinated during the Delta phase, and 101277 children and 37724 adolescents were vaccinated during the Omicron phase.
The primary study outcome was the diagnosis of long COVID 28 to 179 days after a documented SARS-CoV-2 infection, as determined by 2 or more medical visits indicating a diagnoses of long COVID or multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS), or a probable diagnosis of long COVID.
The study found that the estimated effectiveness of the BNT162b2 vaccine against long COVID among adolescents was 95.4% during the Delta period. During the Omicron period, the estimated effectiveness was 60.2% among children and 75.1% among adolescents. During both Delta and Omicron, vaccination prior to infection did not significantly modify the risk of long COVID. The authors concluded that that the benefit of the vaccine in preventing long COVID is due mainly to the fact it mitigates the risk of infection.
Study limitations include potential bias from undocumented infections, that vaccine authorization timing may reduce the generalizability of the findings, that vaccine records may be incomplete for some patients, and that identifying long COVID in children by electronic health records may have introduced potential bias from inaccurate capturing of outcomes.
“Our findings demonstrate the effectiveness of BNT162b2 vaccines on long COVID in US pediatric population,” the authors concluded. “Given that the causal pathways for developing long COVID are still not fully understood, our findings underscore the importance of continually prioritizing the prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infections and using vaccination as a key focus of public health policy to mitigate the risk of long COVID.”
READ MORE: COVID-19 Resource Center
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