Serious adverse events rare after COVID-19 boosters in young kids

Data collected from two vaccine safety surveillance programs in the first 10 weeks of administration of third doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 to US children aged 5 to 11 years show that serious adverse events were rare. A related study in South Korea shows waning vaccine effectiveness (VE) in adolescents after two and three Pfizer doses but sufficient protection against critical illness. Most side effects mild. In the first study, published today in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) analyzed adverse-event data from the agency's voluntary smart phone-based v-safe vaccine-monitoring program and the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) from May 17 to Jul 31, 2022. VAERS is a passive vaccine surveillance system managed by the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).