In Sweden, everyone over the age of twelve is recommended to be vaccinated against covid-19.
However, there is no general recommendation for children aged 5 to 11 years, as the Swedish Public Health Agency has assessed that the benefit of the vaccine does not outweigh the risks because children rarely become seriously ill with covid.
Now, American researchers have investigated how well the vaccine from Pfizer-Biontech protects children and adolescents against covid-19, which becomes so serious that hospital care is required.
- It is a good and well-done study that for the first time followed the children for a long time - such studies have been done many among adults but it has been lacking among children, says Ali Mirazimi, adjunct professor of clinical virology at Karolinska Institutet.
Slightly worse against omikron
For children aged 5 to 11 years, the risk of needing hospital care for the omicron variant was approximately two-thirds lower among the vaccinated compared with the unvaccinated.
Two injections of the vaccine also gave teenagers aged 12 to 18 a good protection against having to be cared for in hospital or suffering from a serious illness, even though the protection was slightly lower at omicron compared to delta.
- Basically, the pattern is the same as we have seen in adults.
The vaccine generally does not protect so well against being infected for a long time, but provides very good protection against serious illness even if it works a little worse against omicrone, says Ali Mirazimi.
"Does not change the game plan"
In the USA, the recommendation, unlike in Sweden, is that 5- to 11-year-olds should also be vaccinated.
But Ali Mirazimi does not think that the new study in itself gives reason to reconsider the Swedish decision regarding that age group.
- This study alone does not change the game plan.
Although this strengthens the evidence that it provides even the youngest group with good protection, there are still few of those who suffer from severe covid.
I think you should wait for even larger studies with longer follow-up time, he says.
- On the other hand, the study strengthens that children from the age of 12 receive good protection from the vaccine for a longer period of time.