• On Monday, Pfizer and BioNTech laboratories published the results of a study showing the effectiveness of vaccination in 5-11 year olds.

  • This study nevertheless suffers from a major bias: its number of cases totally insufficient to measure the benefit / risk balance.

  • The case of vaccination - or not - is actually far from being settled by this study.

Will children soon be vaccinated against the coronavirus?

This possibility was opened on Monday, following the publication of a study by Pfizer-BioNtech laboratories on 4,500 children between 6 months and 11 years old in the United States, Finland, Poland and Spain, including 2,268 aged 5 to 11 years old.

The study boasts a vaccine that is “safe” and “well tolerated” by this population, triggering a “robust” immune response despite a lower dosage than the vaccine in the adult population (10 micrograms per injection against 30 micrograms).

For the moment, vaccination is authorized from the age of 12 in France, in the European Union, in the United States and in most countries of the world.

Will this study pave the way for vaccination from 5 years old?

"20 Minutes" takes stock.

What is the benefit of vaccination for children aged 5 to 11?

Children have very few severe forms of the disease.

Of the 8,845 hospitalizations due to Covid-19 in France currently, only 45 concern children between 0 and 9 years old, or 0.5% of the total.

The ratio drops further during critical care: 4 children aged 0 to 9 are hospitalized out of a total of 1,805 people, or 0.22%.

A possible vaccination of children “will serve primarily to reduce viral circulation in an altruistic interest.

Collective interest will be predominant there, ”notes Mathieu Molimard, head of the medical pharmacology department at the Bordeaux University Hospital.

Indeed, the vaccine reduces the risks of contamination and transmission of the virus (even if it does not completely prevent them), massively vaccinating the population therefore decreases the circulation of the virus and therefore the risk of Covid-19 reaching vulnerable populations. , likely to have serious forms and deaths.

However, with 13% of over 75s still unvaccinated, high circulation of the virus can still lead to saturation of hospitals and many deaths.

Will vaccination of children only benefit others?

This idea of ​​vaccinating children to protect the elderly who have chosen not to be vaccinated is obviously not without asking some ethical questions. However, the eventual vaccination of children should not be summed up as altruism alone. The vaccine protects against serious forms which, if they are rare, are not non-existent in children.

Especially with the gradual lifting of all distancing measures, the virus is likely to circulate much more in children.

"This is the most affected population now that it is the only non-vaccinated category, not to mention a risky environment: large classes, canteens and the wearing of masks not always respected", notes Mathieu Molimard.

As a result, "the virus is therefore likely to spread, increasing hospitalizations among children", predicts the caregiver.

To defend the interest of its study, Pfizer underlines in particular that "since July, pediatric cases of Covid-19 have increased by 240% in the United States, highlighting the need for vaccination".

Can we trust the results of this study?

“Because of this low individual benefit, it is all the more necessary to check the possible undesirable side effects for the balance benefit risk. The vaccine offers a reduced version of the disease, the vaccinees are likely to have minor forms, ”insists Mathieu Molimard.

Now, and this is the whole problem with this study, it only concerns 2,000 children. Enough to see that the immune protection of the vaccine is working, but insufficient to measure the unwanted effects of the serum. Myocarditis, for example, occurs in one case per 100,000 in the general population after vaccination, and according to several studies, at a frequency of one in 5,000 in adolescent boys vaccinated between 12 and 15 years old. However, with such frequency, these side effects are completely impossible to perceive in a study of only 2,000 cases.

However, it is difficult to imagine a study with more children. To have gathered 2,000 of them for a clinical trial is already an achievement, attests Mathieu Molimard: “It is a very difficult population to gather: they are children, we need the consent of the parents and we are less inclined to include children in tests. So what can be done to measure this famous benefit / risk balance?

For Mathieu Molimard, we should "hurry slowly", starting with children who are particularly at risk (before a heart organ transplant, morbid obesity, immunosuppressed ...), who have a much more advantageous benefit / risk balance.

"Thanks to these studies in real life, we could quickly have 300,000 or even a million children vaccinated in the world", which will make it possible to better calculate the incidences of adverse effects.

Israel has already authorized vaccination for children with co-morbidities, and other countries should logically follow.

France has already vaccinated 19,000 children between 0 and 11 years old.

The cases should therefore quickly accumulate and make it possible to see whether immunization for children is a good or a bad thing.

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  • Vaccine

  • Child

  • Anti-covid vaccine

  • Vaccination

  • Covid 19

  • Pfizer-BioNTech

  • Coronavirus

  • Health