Amid the Omicron spike in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday announced that Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE's COVID-19 vaccine caused mostly mild side effects for children ages 5 to 11, reported bloombergquint.com.
According to the report, results of a survey covering 30,000 children who each received two shots, show adverse reactions were similar to those seen in clinical trials, the CDC said. The phone survey, called v-safe, found the most frequent reactions were injection site pain, fatigue and headache.
To analyse the safety of COVID-19 vaccines for kids between the age group of 5-11 years, US CDC examined adverse systemic reactions of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccination receipt and reported it to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a passive vaccine safety surveillance program co-managed by CDC and Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Almost 98% of the 4,249 adverse events recorded weren’t serious, including 975 product preparation issues and 675 where the wrong dose was administered, the bloombergquint.com reported.
The CDC said that of the 100 serious adverse events recorded in VAERS, 29 reported fever, 21 experienced vomiting and 15 had elevated troponin levels. Troponins are proteins found in the cells of the heart muscle and typically are measured to evaluate chest pain or other symptoms of myocardial damage.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has called on people to avoid cruise travel, regardless of vaccination status, as more Covid-19 cases driven by the Omicron variant have been identified on cruise vessels.
"The Covid-19 Travel Health Notice level has been updated from Level 3 to Level 4, the highest level. This reflects increase in cases onboard cruise ships since identification of the Omicron variant," said the CDC. Even fully vaccinated travelers may be at risk for getting and spreading Covid-19 variants, the agency added.
"The virus that causes Covid-19 spreads easily between people in close quarters on board ships, and the chance of getting Covid-19 on cruise ships is very high, even if you are fully vaccinated and have received a Covid-19 vaccine booster dose," said the CDC.
(With inputs from IANS)
