Vaccine effectiveness against Long COVID in children
Razzaghi, H; Forrest, CB; Hirabayashi, K; et al., Pediatrics, April 2024
View Publication on PubMed
Short Summary
Research shows that the COVID-19 vaccine lowers the chance of children getting sick from COVID-19. But it is not clear whether the COVID-19 vaccine protects against Long COVID. RECOVER researchers did a study to look at how well vaccines work in protecting children, ages 5–17, against Long COVID. They studied data from a group of more than 1 million children. The vaccine was 42% effective in lowering the chance of getting Long COVID in kids ages 5–11 and 50% effective for kids ages 12–17. The vaccine works best against Long COVID within the first 6 months of getting it. After 6 months, it does not work as well, so getting the vaccine every year is important to prevent Long COVID. These results show that the COVID-19 vaccine can help children 5 years and older to keep from getting very sick. While this study helps scientists understand how vaccines can protect against COVID-19, they still need to do more research to understand how they protect against Long COVID.
This summary was prepared by the RECOVER Initiative.
Publication Details
Abstract
Objectives: Vaccination reduces the risk of acute coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in children, but it is less clear whether it protects against Long COVID. We estimated vaccine effectiveness (VE) against Long COVID in children aged 5 to 17 years.
Methods: This retrospective cohort study used data from 17 health systems in the RECOVER PCORnet electronic health record program for visits after vaccine availability. We examined both probable (symptom-based) and diagnosed Long COVID after vaccination.
Results: The vaccination rate was 67% in the cohort of 1,037,936 children. The incidence of probable Long COVID was 4.5% among patients with COVID-19, whereas diagnosed Long COVID was 0.8%. Adjusted vaccine effectiveness within 12 months was 35.4% (95 CI 24.5-44.7) against probable Long COVID and 41.7% (15.0-60.0) against diagnosed Long COVID. VE was higher for adolescents (50.3% [36.6-61.0]) than children aged 5 to 11 (23.8% [4.9-39.0]). VE was higher at 6 months (61.4% [51.0-69.6]) but decreased to 10.6% (-26.8% to 37.0%) at 18-months.
Conclusions: This large retrospective study shows moderate protective effect of severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2 vaccination against Long COVID. The effect is stronger in adolescents, who have higher risk of Long COVID, and wanes over time. Understanding VE mechanism against Long COVID requires more study, including electronic health record sources and prospective data.
Authors
Hanieh Razzaghi, Christopher B Forrest, Kathryn Hirabayashi, Qiong Wu, Andrea J Allen, Suchitra Rao, Yong Chen, H Timothy Bunnell, Elizabeth A Chrischilles, Lindsay G Cowell, Mollie R Cummins, David A Hanauer, Miranda Higginbotham, Benjamin D Horne, Carol R Horowitz, Ravi Jhaveri, Susan Kim, Aaron Mishkin, Jennifer A Muszynski, Susanna Naggie, Nathan M Pajor, Anuradha Paranjape, Hayden T Schwenk, Marion R Sills, Yacob G Tedla, David A Williams, L Charles Bailey, RECOVER CONSORTIUM
Keywords
Adolescent; Child; Humans; Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome; COVID-19/epidemiology/prevention & control; Retrospective Studies; Prospective Studies; Vaccine Efficacy