Children and COVID-19 Research Library

During the COVID-19 pandemic, little is known about parental hesitancy to receive the COVID-19 vaccine for preschool children who are the potential vaccinated population in the future. The purpose of this mixed-method study was to explore the factors influencing Chinese parents’ decision to vaccinate their children aged 3–6 years old against COVID-19. In July 2021,  semi-structured interviews (n = 19) and a cross-sectional survey (n = 2605) were conducted with parents of kindergarten children in an urban-rural combination pilot area in China. According to the qualitative study, most parents were hesitant to vaccinate their children with the COVID-19 vaccine.

COVID-19 vaccination is a key public health measure to mitigate the crippling effects of the pandemic. COVID-19 vaccination began in adults and targeted adolescents at a later stage. However, medical decision-making on its uptake among the latter was unknown, which could be affected by their literacy and concerns about the vaccine. The study aimed to elucidate the awareness, concerns and barriers of adolescents toward the COVID-19 vaccine. A cross-sectional online survey using a self-developed questionnaire was conducted between June to November 2021. The adolescent participants were students from institutes of post-secondary education who were recruited via convenience sampling. The data were collated from an officially approved electronic platform, audited and analyzed. Continuous and categorical variables were expressed as mean (standard deviation) and percentages, respectively.

The initiation of a new drug, for instance, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine in children could be a source of major concern for parents. This study aims to determine the willingness of parents in Malaysia to vaccinate their children younger than 12 years against COVID-19. An online cross-sectional survey was conducted nationwide in Malaysia from August 29, 2021, to October 17, 2021. Parents with children younger than 12 years were enrolled via the snowball sampling method.

Vaccination against COVID-19 is the most effective tool to protect both the individual and the community from this potentially life-threatening infectious disease. Data from phase-3 trials showed that two doses of the BNT162b2 vaccine were safe, immunogenic, and effective against COVID-19 in children aged 5–11 years. However, no surveys in real-life settings have been carried out in this age range. This is a cross-sectional study which aims to evaluate the short-term adverse reactions (ARs) and the rate of protection against infection of the BNT162b2 vaccine in children aged 5–11 years by the compilation of two surveillance questionnaires conceived using Google Forms.

This study aimed to disseminate information on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine safety among adolescents aged 12 to 17 years in the Republic of Korea. Two databases were used to assess COVID-19 vaccine safety in adolescents aged 12 to 17 years who completed the primary Pfizer-BioNTech vaccination series. Adverse events reported to the web-based COVID-19 vaccination management system (CVMS) and collected in the text message-based system were analyzed.

The vaccination along with COVID appropriate behaviour plays a key role to decrease the spread of infection in all age groups. The present study aimed at assessing the acceptance and attitude of school-going adolescents aged between15-17 years who recently became eligible to be part of the COVID-19 mass vaccination drive in India along with matching up the COVID appropriate behaviour. A cross-sectional survey-based study was conducted in February 2022 among 300 school-going adolescents aged between 15-17 years selected through multi-stage sampling. A selfreported questionnaire survey instrument in the Google form was used to collect the data. A total of 260 adolescents responded with a response rate of 86.7%. Most of the participants were female (64.2%). The majority of adolescents (80%) had already taken the COVID-19 vaccination at the time of the survey. Very few adolescents had doubts regarding the safety of the vaccine (0.7%). Around 74.6% of adolescents had a good attitude towards COVID-19 vaccination with a mean score of 20.6±2.4. More than half of the adolescents (58%) reported good practice related to COVID appropriate behaviour (CAB) with a mean score of 48.2±6.2. The majority of school-going adolescents had a good attitude and acceptance towards the ongoing vaccination drive and reportedly observed good CAB practices. Long-term COVID-19 preventive approaches along with vaccination need to be employed to support the wellbeing of adolescents

From 2013 to 2016, the H1N1 component of live, attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) performed very poorly in contrast to the inactivated influenza vaccine. We utilized a primary, differentiated human nasal epithelial cell (hNEC) culture system to assess the replication differences between isogenic LAIVs containing the HA segment from either A/Bolivia/559/2013 (rBol), which showed poor vaccine efficacy, and A/Slovenia/2903/2015 (rSlov), which had reasonable vaccine efficacy. There were minimal differences in infectious virus production in Madin-Darby Canine Kidney (MDCK) cells, but the rSlov LAIV showed markedly improved replication in hNEC cultures at both 32 °C and 37 °C, demonstrating that the HA segment alone could impact LAIV replication in physiologically relevant systems.

Pregnant women are recommended to receive COVID-19 vaccination to reduce risk of severe COVID-19. Whether vaccination during pregnancy also provides passive protection to infants after birth remains unclear. This study aimed to determine whether COVID-19 vaccination in pregnancy was associated with reduced risk of COVID-19 in infants up to age 4 months during COVID-19 pandemic periods dominated by Delta and Omicron variants. This nationwide, register-based cohort study included all live-born infants born in Norway between September 1, 2021, and February 28, 2022.

Vaccine incentives have been used across the US to encourage COVID-19 vaccine uptake and include programs targeted to adolescents and young adults. However, little is known about youths’ views regarding these initiatives. To assess experiences and perceptions of COVID-19 vaccine incentives in a nationwide sample of US youth. A qualitative survey study was conducted using the MyVoice text message-based polling platform from October 22 to October 29, 2021. Participants were US adolescents and young adults aged 14 to 24 years, who were sent 5 open-ended questions to assess their experiences and perceptions of COVID-19 vaccine incentives. Qualitative responses were analyzed thematically. Descriptive statistical analysis was performed in January 2022.

The coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID -19) outbreak and lockdown measures have given challenges related to food production, food supply chain, indulgence in low healthy processed food, lack of public transportation, difficulties in accessing emergency and regular health services. Nepal already has high burden of child mortality (39 deaths per 1000 live births) and this pandemic situation has put children at greater risk of facing hunger, malnutrition, lack of routine immunisation, communicable disease outbreak, and many more psychological as well as physical health issues. This study identifies nutritional status and gap in routine vaccination in children during COVID-19 pandemic thereby help in modelling action plan to prevent an outpouring in malnutrition and vaccine preventable infections in children.

Parental vaccine hesitancy is a major barrier to achieving high vaccination uptake among children, particularly in young children during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Developing herd immunity is a critical concept for overcoming the current pandemic. The purpose of this study is to reduce parental vaccine hesitancy through a focused educational seminar in ZOOM and to empower parents who are concerned about vaccinating their children to communicate with medical experts during live seminars. Parents of preschoolers, teachers, and kindergarten principals from three local pre-school education and services associations attended live seminars. After attending seminars, parental willingness to vaccinate their children increased by 65%. The live Zoom seminar led by medical experts resulted in a decrease in vaccine hesitancy. Our findings support the creation of seminars that allow clients and medical specialists to communicate directly with one another. Offering an open and honest forum for people to express their concerns to medical experts could be a useful strategy for dealing with not only vaccination apprehension, but also other health-related emergencies.