Real-world evidence shows Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine effective in kids, adolescents
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Real-world evidence published Tuesday in MMWR demonstrated that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has protected children and adolescents against COVID-19, including kids aged 5 to 11 years.
The study by Nicola P. Klein, MD, a senior research scientist for Kaiser Permanente, and colleagues, analyzed nearly 40,000 ED and urgent care (UC) visits and 1,700 hospitalizations among children aged 5 to 17 years who received the vaccine between April 9 and Jan. 29 in 10 states. The researchers estimated vaccine effectiveness using a case-control test-negative design.
Vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19-related ED and UC visits among children aged 5 to 11 years who received two doses 14 to 67 days earlier was 46% — lower than it was for adolescents aged 12 to 15 years (83%) and 16 to 17 years (76%) 14 to 149 days after receiving a second dose.
For teens aged 16 to 17, however, effectiveness increased to 81% during the omicron wave at least a week after receiving a booster shot of the vaccine.
Likewise, vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19 hospitalizations among children aged 5 to 11 years was lower — 74% — 14 to 67 days after receiving a second dose than it was for adolescents aged 12 to 15 years (92%) and 16 to 17 years (94%) 14 to 149 days after receiving a second dose.
Vaccine effectiveness 14 to 149 days after receiving a second dose was lower during the omicron surge, Klein and colleagues found, falling to 45% and 34% for adolescents aged 12 to 15 and 16 to 17 years, respectively, “suggesting that the lower [vaccine effectiveness] observed among children aged 5 to 11 years was likely driven by the predominant variant rather than differences in [vaccine effectiveness] across age groups”
In fact, vaccine effectiveness measured 14 to 67 days after a second dose was higher — 51% — for children aged 5 to 11 years during omicron than it was in the older age groups.
“This report provides real-world evidence of protection by the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19-associated ED and UC encounters and hospitalizations among children and adolescents aged 5 to 17 years and supports the role of third (booster) doses in maintaining high levels of [vaccine effectiveness] in the setting of omicron predominance,” the authors wrote.
The report was published a day after a study posted on the preprint server medRxiv reported rapidly declining COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness among children aged 5 to 11 years in New York State.
References:
Dorabawila V, et al. medRxiv. 2022;doi:10.1101/2022.02.25.22271454.
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