also confirmed that vaccination reduces the hospitalization rate of Covid in adolescents aged 12-18 years and provides strong protection against severe illness.
Adrienne Randolph from Children’s Hospital Boston said: “The reason for children to get the Covid-19 vaccine is to prevent serious complications of SARS-CoV-2 infection, including hospitalization.
“This evidence suggests that vaccination significantly reduces this risk in children 5 to 11 years old. And while vaccination provides minors with lower protection on admission to hospital with Omicron than Delta does. , it prevents fatal disease from both variants,” she added.
The study included 1,185 children with Covid at 31 children’s hospitals across the United States: 918 adolescents aged 12 to 18 and 267 children 5 to 11. The team also enrolled patients of similar ages. self-admitted to hospital for other reasons and served as control.
Of children 5-11 years old admitted to hospital with Covid, 92% were unvaccinated, and of 16% critically ill, requiring life-support measures such as intubation, 90% were unvaccinated. On the other hand, two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine prevented 68% of hospitalizations during the Omicron process.
“We hope our findings will help parents make decisions about immunizing their children and adolescents against Covid-19,” Randolph said. “The benefits clearly outweigh the risks, as severe infections in childhood can have long-term consequences.”
Source: IANS
