The protection offered by two doses of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine en children decreased during the wave of Omicron, but a boost helped, suggests a new report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that examines data from health centers in 10 states.
The study’s authors attributed much of the fall in protection Omicron variant. The effectiveness of two Pfizer injections to curb the risk of emergencies or urgent care visits with COVID-19 decreased by up to 46% among children aged 5 to 11 years; 45% among young people aged 12 to 15, and 34% among those aged 16 to 17 during the wave.
The effectiveness of the vaccine was lower among children 12 years of age or older who had been vaccinated at least five months earlier but had not received a booster vaccine; for them, the study found “no significant protection” during Omicron. But protection for children with a third dose was 81% during Omicron.
“New studies on vaccine efficacy and CDC surveillance data show that vaccination against COVID-19 in eligible children and adolescents continues to provide protection against serious COVID-19 disease, even during Omicron, “CDC spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund said in a statement.
Additional data released by the CDC on Tuesday, tracking COVID-19 case and death rates in 29 jurisdictions, also found that the disease appeared less frequently among children vaccinated during the Omicron wave.
Although only nine deaths associated with COVID-19 were reported between last April and early January in vaccinated children, Nordlund said, 121 had been reported in unvaccinated children.
New York State health officials also released similar results Monday as a prepress, which has yet to be reviewed in pairs. The study found that vaccine protection against infection “declined rapidly for children, especially those ages 5 to 11” during the Omicron wave.
The authors of this study pointed to measures such as spacing the first and second doses up to 8 weeks, which the CDC recently proposed, as a way to increase the protection of children.
About one-third of children ages 5 to 11 and more than two-thirds of those ages 12 to 17 have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, according to the latest CDC count. Since the agency gave the green light to reinforcements for Americans as young as 12 in January, 21% of vaccinated teens have received an additional vaccine.
“The FDA has full confidence in the data used to support the emergency use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19 in children 5 to 11 years of age and in safety and efficacy. of the vaccine to prevent serious consequences of COVID-19., including hospitalization and death, “FDA spokeswoman Abby Capobianco said in a statement.
The new data echoes the findings of Pfizer and BioNTech, which decided late last year to seek authorization for a “three-dose vaccine approach for all ages.” Last month, companies said they hoped to have data from their three-dose protection clinical trials in early April.
“The agency continues to work closely with the company as they accumulate additional data from their ongoing clinical trial, including the possible need for an additional dose in children,” Capboianco said.
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