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JAMA Network Openhas published a new study showing that, from April 1, 2020, to February 27, 2023, in California, an estimated 146,210 COVID-19 cases were averted by vaccination in teens aged 12 to 15 years, representing a 37% reduction.
Researchers also estimated that 230,134 cases were averted in kids aged 5 to 11 years, a 24% reduction.
The study looked at COVID-19 infections in post-vaccination evaluation periods consisting of 141 days (June 10 to October 29, 2021) for adolescents aged 12 to 15 years, 199 days (November 29, 2021 to June 17, 2022) for children aged 5 to 11 years, and 225 days (July 17, 2022, to February 27, 2023) for those aged 6 to 59 months, according to study authors.
From April 2020 to February 2023, California recorded 3,913,063 pediatric COVID-19 cases and 12,740 hospitalizations. During those times, statewide vaccine coverage reached 53.5% among adolescents aged 12 to 15 years, 34.8% among children aged 5 to 11 years, and 7.9% among those aged 6 to 59 months.
The biggest reduction attributed to vaccination occurred with older kids, and there was no evidence of reductions in COVID-19 cases statewide among children aged 6 to 59 months (estimated averted cases, 259; 95% prediction interval, 1,938 to 1,019).
Though there was no evidence in case reduction in the youngest kids, vaccination prevented an estimated 168 hospitalizations among children aged 6 to 59 months during the 225-day evaluation period.
These results support the use of COVID-19 vaccines to reduce COVID-19 incidence and hospitalization in pediatric populations.
"These results support the use of COVID-19 vaccines to reduce COVID-19 incidence and hospitalization in pediatric populations," the authors concluded.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has fired one Metro-North Railroad employee and suspended 11 Long Island Rail Road workers for submittingfake COVID-19 vaccination cards, which were provided by an Amityville nurse practitioner convicted ofa $1.5 million scheme to sell fraudulent cards, MTA officials said Wednesday.
The dozen employees, whom the agency did not identify, were disciplined afteran investigation by the MTA inspector general, who reviewed statements by the employees as well as financial information, MTA time and payroll records, and COVID-19 testing records, according to an agency news release.
"The COVID-19 vaccination requirement was implemented to protect MTA workers and the riding public at a time of great uncertainty, but these employees decided the rules don't apply to them," said MTA Inspector General Daniel Cort in the release. "MTA employees who submit fraudulent documents will be caught and face consequences."
The MTA implemented the COVID-19 Vaccine and Test program on Oct. 4, 2021, requiring the vaccination and weekly testing of workers. The investigation began in 2022 after the arrest of Julie DeVuono, a nurse practitioner and owner of Wild Child Pediatric Healthcare in Amityville. She pleaded guilty in September to charges of forging vaccine cards, money laundering and offering a false instrument for filing.
Her sentencing is set for June 11, according to the Suffolk County district attorney's office.
Investigators had obtained a list from the state Health Department of MTA employees who submitted COVID-19 cards claiming they were vaccinated by DeVuono, officials said. The 11 LIRR employees signed agreements admitting to various administrative charges, including submitting false documents and not complying with MTA COVID-19 policies, according to the release.
The MTA ended the vaccine and testing program June 7, 2022.
The Metro-North employee was terminated and the 11 LIRR workers were removed from service in January, with those employees agreeingto serve unpaid suspensions that ranged from 60 to 120 days.
Four of the LIRR workers had admitted not getting vaccinated and paying DeVuono for fake vaccination cards, MTA officials said. Six of the LIRR employees and the terminated Metro-North employee claimed they got vaccinated and paid DeVuono for a homeopathic "detox treatment." The inspector general's office found their accounts "illogical and not credible." The other LIRR worker claimed he got vaccinated at DeVuono's office and did not pay anything. That account, which was contradicted by financial records, was found not to be credible, officials said.
DeVuono admitted that between June 15, 2021, and Jan. 27, 2022, she chargedadult customers $220 for a false vaccination entry on their COVID-19 cards and another $220 to enter the false information into the New York State Immunization Information System, a statewide vaccination database.
DeVuono agreed to forfeit criminal proceeds totaling $1.2 million, officials said. She surrendered her professional license as a nurse practitionerand registered professional nurse, and agreed to shut down her pediatric office, officials said.
Craig Schneider is a Long Island native and Stony Brook University alumnus. He joined Newsday as a general assignment reporter in January 2018 after 20 years at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
People with a history of uveitis were more likely to experience recurrences of the potentially dangerous eye inflammation after vaccination against COVID-19, a retrospective population-based cohort study from South Korea found.
Of 473,934 vaccinated individuals with a prior case of uveitis, 16.8% developed it again within a year of vaccination, with an overall 21% elevated risk compared with the pre-vaccination period, Seong Joon Ahn, MD, PhD, of Hanyang University Seoul Hospital in South Korea, and colleagues reported in JAMA Ophthalmology.
The risk was especially high in the initial 30 days after the first shot as compared with the pre-vaccination period (HR 1.64, 95% CI 1.55-1.73) and in patients who received the Johnson & Johnson Ad.26.COV2.S vaccine, which is no longer available in the U.S. (HR 2.07, 95% CI 1.40-3.07).
"These findings suggest that there was an elevated risk of uveitis following COVID-19 vaccination, with the vaccine type and period mediating this risk," the authors wrote. "For individuals with a history of uveitis, clinicians should consider the potential risk of uveitis recurrence in vaccination strategies and clinical monitoring."
Although rare, uveitis remains a leading cause of legal blindness in the U.S.
Prior findings on a link between uveitis and COVID-19 vaccines have been mixed. A 2023 analysis of the CDC's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System concluded it's a "low safety concern," with estimated incident rates per million persons of 0.57 with Pfizer's BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine (Comirnaty) vaccine, 0.44 with Moderna's mRNA-1273 (Spikevax), and 0.35 with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. However, a similar 2024 study from British regulators found no links between the vaccines and uveitis in the general population.
The new study aimed to determine if uveitis risk is higher in those with a history of the condition and whether the risk levels differ by type of vaccine or timing of doses.
Within the 3 months after vaccination, 8.6% of patients had anterior uveitis, and 1.6% nonanterior uveitis. The total rates grew to 12.5% at 6 months and 16.8% at 12 months. The ratio of anterior to nonanterior forms remained about the same at 4.4 and 4.8, respectively.
Overall, the post-vaccination rate was higher than pre-vaccination (HR 1.21, 95% CI 1.19-1.24), although it decreased after the initial 30 days after the first vaccine dose. The researchers speculated that an "increased immune response following the initial dose might activate inflammatory pathways, resulting in conditions like uveitis, particularly in individuals prone to autoimmune reactions or with a uveitis history." Later, they wrote, the declining risk "may stem from the immune system adapting to the vaccine antigen, resulting in a more controlled immune response that mitigates inflammatory side effects."
In a commentary accompanying the paper, Anika Kumar, BA, and Nisha Acharya, MD, MS, of the University of California San Francisco, noted that it's important to consider the study findings in light of the risk of not getting vaccinated against COVID-19. On the ocular front alone, conjunctivitis is a well-known symptom in COVID-19, which is also linked to a long list of other ocular conditions.
For their study, the researchers tracked all 473,934 patients in South Korea who were vaccinated, had a history of uveitis, and did not develop COVID-19 during the study period using national healthcare databases. Among these patients, 51.3% were female, the mean age was 59 years, 74.3% had rheumatic diseases, and 45.7% had hypertension. Nearly 40% had four vaccine doses.
By type of vaccine, 36.3% of the individuals received the AstraZeneca ChAdOx1 shot, and 9.3% of those developed uveitis in the 30 days after the first dose. Those numbers were 51.2% and 9.9%, respectively, for Pfizer's vaccine; 10.3% and 10.4% for Moderna's shot; and 2% and 11.7% for the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
The uveitis hazard ratios for the 30 days after the first dose versus the pre-vaccination period were:
The authors noted limitations such as a reliance on diagnostic codes and lack of information about uveitis severity or use of anti-inflammatory drugs that could decrease the risk of uveitis. The commentary authors also noted that the approach used "did not account for the healthy vaccinee bias, which refers to how individuals in better health are more likely to receive vaccinations."
Randy Dotinga is a freelance medical and science journalist based in San Diego.
Disclosures
The National Research Foundation of Korea, Ministry of Science and Information and Communication Technology, and Hanyang University funded the study.
The study authors reported no disclosures.
Acharya disclosed receiving advisory fees from Roche and nonfinancial support from AbbVie.
Primary Source
JAMA Ophthalmology
Source Reference: Kim J, et al "COVID-19 vaccineassociated uveitis in patients with a history of uveitis" JAMA Ophthalmol 2024; DOI: 10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2024.0973.
Secondary Source
JAMA Ophthalmology
Source Reference: Kumar A, Acharya NR "Real-world vaccine research and clinical practice" JAMA Ophthalmol 2024; DOI: 10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2024.1049.
A 7 year-old child holds a sticker she received after getting the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine ... [+] at the Child Health Associates office in Novi, Michigan on November 3, 2021. - An expert panel unanimously recommended Pfizer-BioNTech's Covid vaccine for five- to 11-year-olds on November 2, the penultimate step in the process that will allow injections in young children to begin this week in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the top US public health agency, was expected to endorse that recommendation later in the day. (Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY / AFP) (Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images)
A new California-based study including the data of 3.9 million pediatric Covid-19 cases found that thanks to the states Covid-19 immunization program, there was a reduction of 26.3% in the number of cases among children aged 6 months to 15 years.
More specifically, the researchers estimated that there was a 37.1% reduction in Covid-19 cases among adolescents aged 12 to 15 years and a 23.7% reduction among children aged 5 to 11 years. Whereas Covid-19 vaccinations were associated with 24.4% fewer hospitalizations among children aged 6 months to 4.9 years.
Despite low vaccination coverage, pediatric COVID-19 immunization in California averted 376,085 reported cases and 273 hospitalizations among children aged 6 months to 15 years over approximately 4 to 7 months following vaccination availability, the researchers wrote in their study that was published in JAMA Network Open on April 23, 2024.
COVID-19 vaccines are safe for children. However, concerns over vaccine-related adverse events, lower vaccine effectiveness against illness in children, and perceptions of a milder disease course in children have resulted in high rates of parental vaccine hesitancy and resistance to pediatric vaccine mandates, the authors added. While California has among the highest rates of vaccination in the US, pediatric vaccination coverage lags that of adults substantially, with only 8.2% of children younger than 5 years and 37.8% of children aged 5 to 11 years fully vaccinated as of May 2023. Severe manifestations of COVID-19 are rare among children, but can occur.
Lead author Justin V. Remais of the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues, analyzed data on 3,913,063 pediatric Covid-19 cases and 12,740 hospitalizations in California. They then studied how pediatric Covid-19 vaccinations were introduced to children belonging to different age groups and calculated statewide outcomes that could be associated with vaccinations preventing or reducing new pediatric cases and Covid-19-related hospitalizations between April 2020 and February 2023. The team obtained data from the California COVID-19 Reporting System.
Of the 3.9 million pediatric Covid-19 cases reported in California among children younger than 18 years, 1.2% cases were among infants younger than 6 months, 13.2% in children aged 6 to 4.9 years, and 38.6% in children aged 12 to 15 years. The highest percentage of cases (40.7%) was in children aged 5 to 11 years. Among pediatric Covid-19 hospitalized cases, adolescents aged 12 to 15 were the most hospitalized group (30.8%).
"On average, every increase of 10 vaccinations per 1000 children corresponded to a reduction of 0.9 cases per 1000 children for individuals aged 6 to 59 months, 3.5 cases per 1000 children for those aged 5 and 11 years, and 2 cases per 1000 children for adolescents aged 12 to 15 years," the researchers explained.
"Prior work has similarly reported a high impact of widespread administration of mRNA vaccines in adult populations. In California, COVID-19 vaccines were estimated to avert more than 1.5 million cases, 72,000 hospitalizations, and 19,000 deaths statewide during the first 10 months of vaccination (through October 16, 2021). In the US, each 10% increase in vaccination coverage among individuals aged 18 years or older at the county level was associated with an 8% reduction in mortality and a 7% reduction in incidence," the researchers added.
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A major bivalent COVID-19 vaccine induces production of neutralizing antibodies against the coronavirus that circulated at the start of the pandemic as well as subvariants of omicron, albeit less abundantly, according to a Brazilian study reported in the Journal of Medical Virology.
The study confirmed the vaccine's effectiveness and its importance to control of the disease, while also showing that more than three years after the first application of a COVID-19 vaccine in Brazil, the vaccination model should be similar to that adopted for influenza, with frequent adjustments to the formulation to prioritize more recent variants.
This was the first research project conducted to evaluate the immunity induced by the Pfizer-BioNTech bivalent vaccine (COMIRNATY Original/omicron BA.4-5) in a group of Brazilian subjects. The scientists investigated the antibody neutralization response against different variants of SARS-CoV-2 using serum samples from 93 healthy volunteers (31 males and 62 females) aged between 16 and 84 years and living in Barreiras, Bahia state.
Some of the volunteers had previously been given three or four doses of monovalent vaccines based only on the original strain of the virus first identified in Wuhan, China, such as Coronavac (Butantan Institute/Sinovac), Covishield (Oxford/AstraZeneca), or those of Janssen and Pfizer. Others were also given as an extra booster the bivalent vaccine containing components of the original strain as well as omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5.
Serum samples collected from the volunteers were submitted to antibody neutralization assays using different strains of SARS-CoV-2: the original strain from the start of the pandemic; omicron (BA.1), predominant in 2021; and omicron subvariants FE.1.2 and BQ.1.1, predominant in Brazil more recently.
The study showed that the bivalent vaccine administered as a booster reinforced the immune response and was more effective in neutralizing omicron and its subvariants than in volunteers given only four shots of a monovalent vaccine. However, its main focus was still the original strain that predominated at the start of the pandemic, and the resulting competition limited medium- to long-term immunity against more recent variants, which are now more important epidemiologically.
"This was expected because immune memory is based on cells capable of recognizing fractions of the virus and is reinforced by the number of contacts with the contaminant. The immune system will naturally react more against what it already knows, and the participants given the bivalent vaccine had already taken three or four doses of a monovalent vaccine," said Jaime Henrique Amorim, last author of the article. Amorim is a professor at the Federal University of Western Bahia (UFOB) and a visiting researcher at the University of So Paulo's Biomedical Sciences Institute (ICB-USP).
"Controlling a virus with the high transmission capacity of SARS-CoV-2 requires equally high vaccine coverage," said Lus Carlos de Souza Ferreira, head of ICB-USP's Vaccine Development Laboratory and a co-author of the article. "The results of the study show that bivalent vaccines are effective to achieve immunity against subvariants of omicron and that their administration has been fundamental to control novel variants."
According to the researchers, another conclusion to be drawn from the findings is that future planning of vaccination policy should take into account the fact that the immune response induced by existing vaccines is mainly to the original strain, which has ceased circulating since 2020, and vaccines should have their formulation adjusted so that they no longer include these components.
"Forthcoming doses should be designed to combat the variants that are circulating now, instead of those that have disappeared, so that immunity is updated and reinforced in accordance with the current epidemiological situation, as it already is in the case of influenza vaccines," Amorim said.
The joint first authors of the article are Milena Silva Souza and Jssica Pires Farias, researchers at UFOB. The other co-authors are affiliated with institutions in Brazil and the United States.
More information: Milena Silva Souza et al, Neutralizing antibody response after immunization with a COVID19 bivalent vaccine: Insights to the future, Journal of Medical Virology (2024). DOI: 10.1002/jmv.29416
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Oklahoma State Department of Health officials received all information necessary to safely administer the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to those ages 12 to 15.
Thursday, May 13th 2021, 5:13 pm
Oklahoma State Department of Health officials received all information necessary to safely administer the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to those ages 12 to 15.
We want our kids to get back to some normalcy as well, said Keith Reed, the state deputy commissioner of health.
The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention approved the Pfizer vaccine for children ages 12 and up.
Reed said that normalcy comes through vaccination, and vaccinating the young population is very similar to vaccinating adults.
The dosing is the same and that is what was studied and it remains the same recommendation, said Reed. Really, the only difference we are looking at in rolling it out to 12- to 15-year-olds is parental consent.
Which OSDH officials are working to make easier with an authorization form that will on the states vaccine portal that a parent can fill out if they cant make the childs appointment.
The child would need to be brought to the clinic with an adult that can attest to that consent and we can then take care of them, said Reed.
Parents also dont need to worry about separating routine vaccines from the COVID-19 vaccine after a new CDC recommendation.
So that means when you go to your doctor and you have that conversation with your doctor, you can get all your vaccines when you get there so you no longer have to wait that two weeks, which will expedite that process to get you back to a new normal moving forward," said Jolianne Stone, a state epidemiologist.
State health officials said they will not mandate kids to get vaccinated to go back to school.
We have no intent in requiring these vaccines, said Reed.
Drugmaker Pfizer is now shipping doses of its COVID-19 vaccine out to states and health care workers are expected to start getting the vaccine as early as today. Dr. Ellen Niemitalo from the Tulsa Health Department joined the News On 6 team virtually to answer questions about the vaccine as the rollout begins.
Monday, December 14th 2020, 8:21 am
By: News On 6
Drugmaker Pfizer is now shipping doses of its COVID-19 vaccine out to states and health care workers are expected to start getting the vaccine as early as today.
Dr. Ellen Niemitalo from the Tulsa Health Department joined the News On 6 team virtually to answer questions about the COVID-19 vaccine as the rollout begins.
This article has been reviewed according to ScienceX's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:
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Concerns about the common side effects of COVID-19 vaccines and their effectiveness are key to determining whether adults in Germany and the UK choose to get vaccinated against the virus, according to new research being presented at this year's ESCMID Global Congress (formerly ECCMID) in Barcelona, Spain (27-30 April).
In contrast, timing of COVID-19 and influenza vaccines and their type have little influence on people's willingness to get vaccinated in both countries.
The survey and discrete choice experiment involved 1,000 adults (500 from Germany and 500 from the UK, with 250 who were fully vaccinated and 250 who were willing to receive a COVID-19 vaccine but were not up to date on their vaccine in each country. These "vaccine-hesitant" people included 230/250 participants from the UK who were partially vaccinated, and 20 who were unvaccinated, respectively; and 226/250 from Germany who were partially vaccinated, and 24 who were unvaccinated, respectively. Fully vaccinated was defined as participants who believed they were fully vaccinated, having received the initial primary series and additional COVID-19 booster doses. Un/partially vaccinated consisted of those who did not receive all primary series or booster doses available to them.
The study by Professor Jeffrey Lazarus from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health in Spain and international colleagues offers important insights into the drivers of behavior that might boost COVID-19 vaccine uptake, especially in those who are vaccine-hesitant.
"With vaccination fatigue growing alongside vaccine disinformation and hesitancy, our research suggests that educating the public about the benefits of vaccines, with messaging focusing largely on vaccine safety and efficacy, will get more people to roll up their sleeves," says Professor Lazarus. "What's more, a better understanding of the importance of the perceptions of possible vaccine side effects will be essential to developing more appropriate messaging to reduce vaccine hesitancy."
Despite medical evidence of the importance and safety of COVID-19 vaccines, some of the public is hesitant and/or opposed to COVID-19 vaccination. Understanding the public's preferences for different COVID-19 vaccines and drivers of vaccine hesitancy is critical for implementing effective strategies to increase vaccine uptake.
To identify the most important factors when choosing to be vaccinated against COVID-19, the researchers first conducted an online survey of 1,000 adults in Germany (average age 47 years; 50% women) and the UK (average age 50 years; 49% women) between July and August 2023, to find out their preferences and experiences with SARS-CoV-2 infections and COVID-19 vaccines.
Participants were recruited using a specialist patient recruitment agency called Global Perspectives (GP). GP identified eligible participants through their panel databases, as well as through support groups, word of mouth, internet advertising, email blasts, and social media. Recruitment messages were used to support this process. The sample was stratified by country, vaccination status, and disease risk status.
Then the study went a step further to examine which of six attributes of a COVID-19 vaccine were the most important in making a decision to be vaccinated or notvaccine type (mRNA or protein), level of protection against COVID infection, level of protection against severe COVID-19 disease, chance of experiencing common side effects (i.e., reactogenicity events), risk of serious side effects (i.e., myocarditis/pericarditis), or joint and separate administration of influenza and COVID-19 vaccines.
This was done by giving each participant an illustrative choice task in which they viewed 11 unique vaccine profiles with a different combination of the six vaccine attributes. Participants were asked to choose between two different vaccine profiles at a time, and to pick which vaccine they would choose if there were only those two vaccine options, or they could select that they would prefer neither of the two options. Using this approach, researchers were able to understand the relative importance of each attribute to each participant.
In the baseline survey that asked participants how they felt about different attributes individually, 59% of German and 46% of UK respondents reported being moderately to extremely worried about COVID-19. More than three-quarters of those surveyed in both countries considered that being able to choose a COVID-19 vaccine to be moderately to extremely important. Additionally, around two-thirds of German and around half (45%) of UK participants reported that they were moderately to extremely worried about serious vaccine side effects.
The survey results differed substantially between the vaccinated and unvaccinated/partially vaccinated groups (based on ranking moderately to severely combined)while concerns about COVID-19 were higher in the vaccinated group, having a choice of vaccine, vaccine type and concerns of side effects were all rated higher in the unvaccinated/partially vaccinated groups, with the trend followed in both countries.
However, when these attributes were put together in a combined profile in the discrete choice experiment (i.e., when considered together with efficacy, side effects, timing, etc.), the results showed that the most important considerations when deciding whether to be vaccinated in respondents from both countries were vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19 infection and severe disease, followed by common side effects.
Interestingly, the relative importance of common side effects was nearly 10% higher among Germany participants than their UK counterparts, while the importance of serious side effects was less than half as important as common side effects in both countries.
The researchers' next steps involve examining the rate at which participants experience common side effects and the impact on individuals' activities.
The authors note several limitations, including that the study used self-reported/stated preferences that might not always match preferences/decision-making in real-world situations.
More information: Poster abstract P0344 at the ESCMID Global Congress (formerly ECCMID).
Provided by European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases
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Novavax Inc. recently announced its Nuvaxovid XBB.1.5 dispersion for injection, COVID-19 Vaccine (recombinant, adjuvanted) (NVX-CoV2601) becameavailable to pharmacies across the United Kingdom (U.K.) for private healthcare providers to offer an updated protein-based non-mRNA option as part of the 2024 vaccination season.
On April 18, 2024, Novavax stated in a press release, Today is an important milestone for our organization. It demonstrates our commitment to deliver an updated protein-based COVID-19 vaccine as we evolve into an endemic market.
It also underscores our place as a long-term partner to public health.
We believe a diverse vaccine portfolio and broader access can be vital in protecting communities in the U.K. and elsewhere.
Our participation in the U.K. private market follows the receipt of a Wholesale Dealers License from the U.K. Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency and the U.K. Health Security Agencys latest Green Book update in February 2024 includes our updated COVID-19 vaccine for active immunization to prevent COVID-19 in individuals aged 12 and older.
