The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends revaccinating children 12 to 17 years of age five months after primary vaccination.
1754
Updated recommendations released in early January by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The document concerns the Pfizer/BioNTech booster vaccine against COVID-19. In a statement, the CDC says booster vaccines help expand and strengthen protection against all variants of the coronavirus.
“It is very important that we protect our children and adolescents from COVID-19 and its complications. We now recommend that all adolescents aged 12-17 receive a booster 5 months after their primary vaccination. This will provide optimal protection against all strains of COVID-19,” said Rochelle Walensky, head of the CDC, M.D. vaccines for COVID-19.
Multisystem inflammation syndrome in children and adolescents is a rare but severe complication of coronavirus infection that usually occurs several weeks after infection. Its clinical signs resemble those of Kawasaki disease and toxic shock syndrome at the same time. Without adequate treatment, this complication can lead to a serious condition and even death.
Experts found 21 post-vaccination cases of multisystem inflammation syndrome. The average age of the patients was 16 years, and more than half of them were men. But it should be taken into account that by the time of the study, the number of those vaccinated from 12 to 20 years old was quite large – more than 21 million people.
Thus, there is only one registered case of the syndrome per million vaccinated adolescents. In comparison, among unvaccinated children with COVID-19, the incidence of this complication is much higher. It is 224 and 164 cases per million cases among people aged 11–15 and 16–20 years, respectively.