A large US study found no association between vaccination against COVID-19 and about 20 side effects, some of them potentially serious, in toddlers aged six months to five years.
The analysis carried out by the health organization Kaiser Permanente in collaboration with the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention focused on 135,000 doses of the messenger RNA vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech and 112,000 doses of the vaccine from Moderna. These doses were administered between June 2022 and March 2023.
The researchers detected no association, within 21 days of vaccination, between the vaccine and 23 side effects ranging from appendicitis to Kawasaki syndrome.
“The conclusion is that this vaccine is safe for children under 12,” summarized Dr. Caroline Quach-Thanh, from CHU Sainte-Justine.
Crucially, the study authors write, no association was found between vaccination and myocarditis or pericarditis, which is consistent with data from Phase 3 clinical studies or findings from other vaccine monitoring systems.
The risk of myocarditis associated with vaccination against COVID-19 had mainly been seen in boys and men aged 12 to 29, recalled Dr. Quach.
“It’s really in that age group where it was,” she said. But in the little ones, it is not the same dose of vaccine, we will remember that there is still a lower dose of messenger RNA in pediatric vaccines. The risk really seems to increase with adolescence. Is the immune response different? We don’t really know. »
This study demonstrates that the messenger RNA vaccine against COVID-19 is safe for children 12 and under, “point bar”, repeated Dr. Quach.
Now, knowing whether or not to administer it to children in whom vaccine effectiveness will be very limited is a whole other debate that “has nothing to do with safety,” she said.
“It’s always good to prevent complications and hospitalizations, but there are almost none in a healthy child, recalled Dr. Quach. The reason why in Quebec vaccinating children for COVID has never been a strong recommendation, unless the child has an underlying medical condition, is that the benefit is not that great. . »
Needless to recall the frenzy (media and otherwise) that surrounded certain side effects that have been associated, rightly or wrongly, with vaccination against COVID-19 at the height of the pandemic.
Despite all this, in the end, concludes Dr. Quach, this new study demonstrates that the surveillance systems for the side effects of vaccination work, and that is what is most important and most reassuring.
“If we want the population to continue to trust us when we say, listen, the vaccine is safe, we have to be able to demonstrate that it is safe,” she said. You have to be able to detect small signals, even when it doesn’t seem to make sense. This is how science advances, and this is how we maintain a safe vaccination system. »
The findings of this study were published in the renowned medical journal Pediatrics.