Vaccine development against COVID-19 has mitigated severe disease. However, reports of rare but serious adverse events following immunization (sAEFI) in the young populations are fuelling parental anxiety and vaccine hesitancy. With a very early season of viral illnesses including COVID-19, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), influenza, metapneumovirus and several others, children are facing a winter with significant respiratory illness burdens. Yet, COVID-19 vaccine and booster uptake remain sluggish due to the mistaken beliefs that children have low rates of severe COVID-19 illness as well as rare but severe complications from COVID-19 vaccine are common. In this study we examined composite sAEFI reported in association with COVID-19 vaccines in the United States (US) amongst 5-17-year-old children, to ascertain the composite reported risk associated with vaccination. Between December 13, 2020, and April 13, 2022, a total of 467,890,599 COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered to individuals aged 5-65 years in the US, of which 180 million people received at least 2 doses. In association with these, a total of 177,679 AEFI were reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event reporting System (VAERS) of which 31,797 (17.9%) were serious. The rates of ED visits per 100,000 recipients were 2.56 (95% CI: 2.70-3.47) amongst 5-11-year-olds, 18.25 (17.57-18.95) amongst 12-17-year-olds and 33.74 (33.36-34.13) amongst 18-65-year olds; hospitalizations were 1.07 (95% CI 0.87-1.32) per 100,000 in 5-11-year-olds, 6.83 (6.42-7.26) in 12-17-year olds and 8.15 (7.96-8.35) in 18-65 years; life-threatening events were 0.14 (95% CI: 0.08-0.25) per 100,000 in 5-11-year olds, 1.22 (1.05-1.41) in 12-17-year-olds and 2.96 (2.85-3.08) in 18-65 year olds; and death 0.03 (95% CI 0.01-0.10) per 100,000 in 5-11 year olds, 0.08 (0.05-0.14) amongst 12-17-year olds and 0.76 (0.71-0.82) in 18-65 years age group. The results of our study from national population surveillance data demonstrate rates of reported serious AEFIs amongst 5-17-year-olds which appear to be significantly lower than in 18-65-year-olds. These low risks must be taken into account in overall recommendation of COVID-19 vaccination amongst children.
Copyright: © 2023 Mangat et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.