Real-world study tracking vaccine power to protect children from Delta and Omicron variants

A new real-world study led by researchers at Perelman College shows that children and adolescents who received one of the main vaccines for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) were more likely to receive the vaccine than those who did not receive the vaccine. They were significantly protected from the disease and showed no signs of increased heart complications. University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). When the Delta variant became famous, studies showed vaccinated young people were 98 percent less likely to be infected than unvaccinated young people, and data showed that the Omicron variant was predominant. showed that the effectiveness of the vaccine was slightly reduced. This paper today Annual report of internal medicine.

Analyzing 250,000 patients, about half of whom had received at least one dose of the BNT162b2 vaccine (co-developed by Pfizer and BioNTech), Dr. Yong Chen and Dr. Jeffrey Morris Researchers led by Perelman School of Medicine professor of biostatistics and Christopher Forrest, MD, professor of pediatrics at CHOP and the University of Pennsylvania, predict that delta and omicron subspecies will become dominant in mid-2021 and 2022, respectively. I covered the period when it happened. .

Previous clinical trials have shown that the vaccine strongly protects against infection in children and adolescents, but there has been limited evidence of the vaccine’s performance outside of controlled settings. So researchers are using electronic medical record data collected from a nationwide network of pediatric medical centers known as PEDSnet to conduct one of the largest coronavirus vaccine studies in children and adolescents in the United States. carried out.

Our study had longer follow-up than any previous study, allowing us to assess the real-world long-term durability of vaccine protection against Delta and Omicron variants. Additionally, it covers a diverse representation of the U.S. pediatric population, from primary care, specialty care, emergency departments, testing centers, and inpatient facilities. ”

Dr. Yong Chen, Professor of Biostatistics, Perelman School of Medicine

One of the main ideas behind this study, as stated by the study’s first authors, Qiong Wu, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and Jiayi Tong, a doctoral candidate in biostatistics at the University of Pennsylvania. It was to help address under-reporting. Check the status of your vaccine to get a clearer picture of its effectiveness.

However, the focus of this study was not just on infection prevention. The researchers also looked at the potential impact on heart disease risk.

“We found no signs of increased cardiac risk in either variant stage,” Morris said.

During the period when the delta variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus emerged and became dominant, researchers found that vaccinated adolescents (defined as patients between the ages of 12 and 20) had an infection rate of approximately 98%. I discovered that. He was less likely to become infected or develop severe disease than those who did not receive it, and there was no evidence of an increase in heart complications or a significant decline in his defenses against infection over the subsequent four months.

Vaccination proved to provide strong protection against omicron waves, albeit on a smaller scale than during delta waves. Among adolescents, vaccinated people are about 86 percent less likely to become infected than unvaccinated people, and their protection against severe disease and ICU admission is just as high; They were about 85 percent and 91 percent less likely, respectively, than those without.

Children (those who were 5 to 11 years old at the time of Omicron vaccination) had 74 percent better protection against infection than unvaccinated children. The relative protection against severe disease and ICU admission was 76% and 85%, respectively.

During the omicron wave, data showed some decline in efficacy in the four months after vaccination, but vaccine recipients actually had a lower risk of heart complications during this period.

In a follow-up study, researchers will conduct further studies to characterize the direct and indirect effects of vaccination on outcomes related to long coronaviruses, a phenomenon in which symptoms associated with the disease last for months or even years. ing.

Additionally, researchers believe further long-term studies are needed to better understand how well the vaccine continues to protect recipients.

“Children and adolescents were the last age group to participate in clinical trials of COVID-19 vaccines.Although the pandemic has been declared over, the risk of COVID-19 still exists across U.S. communities. ,” Forrest said. “Therefore, more information is needed about the effectiveness of vaccinations given to children and adolescents in more recent periods.”

This study was partially funded by the National Institutes of Health (OT2HL161847-01, 1R01LM012607, 1R01AI130460, 1R01AG073435, 1R56AG074604, 1R01LM013519, 1R56AG069880, 1R01AG077820, 1U). 01TR003709) and Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute Project Program Awards (ME-2019C3) -18315 and ME-2018C3-14899).