A study published on Wednesday concluded that vaccinating children and adolescents against Covid-19 is a sound measure with positive public health implications, as it found that young patients are more likely to experience health problems after contracting the disease than to experience side effects after vaccination.
According to the study, the results of which were published in the journal “The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health” and which is based on retrospective data from millions of young British patients between 2020 and 2022, “the first infection with Covid-19 in those under the age of 18 is associated with rare but serious health risks that last for months.”
On the other hand, according to the study, “the risks observed after the first vaccination are limited to the period immediately following vaccination, and are much lower than those that occur after infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus,” indicating that this applies to the Pfizer vaccine.
This study provides some answers to a question that has raised great sensitivity since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic at the beginning of this decade, and concerns the extent of the safety of vaccinating young people, given that the risks associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection in them appear to be much lower than those recorded in the elderly.
In fact, vaccines developed using messenger DNA (mRNA) technology, most notably the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, can in rare cases cause heart problems.
But according to the study published yesterday, Wednesday, the risks of heart disease resulting from Covid-19 infection are much higher, even in young people, than those associated with the Pfizer vaccine. The study authors include “thromboembolism, thrombocytopenia, myocarditis, and pericarditis” among these complications.
The study authors concluded that these results “support the idea that continuing vaccination among children and youth is an effective public health measure.”
However, while the study authors were able to evaluate the consequences of infection with Covid-19 in all those under the age of 18, they only succeeded in doing so with regard to vaccination among those between the ages of 5 and 18, as the vaccine is still very rare in children at a very young age.
Importantly, these conclusions relate to “the strains of Covid-19 that were circulating at the time, and not to the less dangerous strains that are circulating now,” pediatrician Adam Finn, who was not involved in the study, explained in a statement to the UK Science Media Centre.