Safety and Efficacy of the COVID-19 Vaccine in Children and Adolescents: A Meta-Analysis

    January 2022 in “ Journal of Infection ”
    Wen‐Cheng Xu, Jiake Tang, Chen Chen, Chunyi Wang, Wen Wen, Yongran Cheng, Mengyun Zhou, Qi Wu, Xingwei Zhang, Zhanhui Feng, Mingwei Wang
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    TLDR COVID-19 vaccines are safe and highly effective for children, with inactivated vaccines being slightly better.
    A meta-analysis of 9 articles, including 7 randomized clinical trials and 2 observational studies, involving 264,674 patients, found that COVID-19 vaccines are 96.09% effective in children and adolescents. The effectiveness of attenuated vaccines was 95.05%, while inactivated vaccines were 97.32% effective. Adverse reactions were 0.59, with attenuated vaccines having a higher rate of 0.78 compared to inactivated vaccines at 0.47. Pain at the injection site was also lower for inactivated vaccines (0.30) compared to attenuated vaccines (0.78). The study concluded that COVID-19 vaccines for children are safe and effective, with inactivated vaccines showing the highest effectiveness and least pain at the injection site.
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