The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has said it has discovered in a study that Pfizer’s Covid vaccine is 93% effective at protecting against hospitalization in 12- to 18-year-olds.
About 464 Covid patients ages 12 to 18 spread across 19 U.S. pediatric hospitals were monitored by the CDC from June through September when the delta variant was at its peak across the country.
Although 72% of them had at least one underlying condition that increased the potential for severe symptoms, it was found that 97% of those who ended up in the hospital weren’t vaccinated.
What this means
According to the study, six were vaccinated and 173 were unvaccinated amongst the patients, 43% required intensive care, and 16% of the critically ill children received life support and two deaths were recorded.
The findings are similar to the results of a study which was conducted in Israel, revealing that Pfizer’s Covid vaccine was almost 92% effective in preventing hospitalization among 12- to 15-year-old patients. However, the Israeli study did not feature enough cases to properly determine the vaccine’s full effectiveness against Covid hospitalizations.
The CDC said 61% of the study’s participants were from the South, since that is the region that experienced elevated levels of Covid transmission during the period in review. Researchers maintain that the high concentration of Southern patients also could have affected the findings.
“These data suggest that increasing vaccination coverage among this group could reduce the incidence of severe COVID-19 in the United States,” CDC researchers wrote in their Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Pfizer’s Covid vaccine for anyone over 16 on August 23, however, the vaccine was left on emergency use status only for children 12 to 15, pending further review.
The CDC reported as of Tuesday that in the United States, more than 104 million people in the U.S. have been fully vaccinated with Pfizer’s vaccines, as over 9 million have already received a Pfizer booster dose.
The Pfizer’s boosters for select at-risk groups had been authorized by the CDC last month, including people 65 years and above, all medically vulnerable, immunocompromised adults and those who are exposed to Covid due to their work.
For 12 to 18-year-olds, the U.S. health leaders have refrained from approving boosters stating their strong likelihood for surviving Covid and concerns over the risk of two vaccine-induced rare heart inflammation conditions, myocarditis and pericarditis.