Happy Nice Mall

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was 93 percent effective against hospitalizations with Covid-19 among 12-18 year olds. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday, the strongest evidence to date of the vaccine’s ability to keep young people out of the hospital.

Now with federal regulators Considering allowing vaccination for children ages 5 to 11The study offered additional signs that expanding vaccines to include more young people could not only reduce the spread of the virus in the United States, but also protect these children from the rare cases where they became seriously ill.

“This assessment showed that two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines were highly effective in preventing Covid-19 hospitalizations among 12-18 year olds, reinforcing the importance of vaccination to protect US youth against severe Covid-19,” the agency’s scientists said. . 19″

The agency studied teenagers hospitalized in 19 pediatric hospitals in 16 states between June and September as the Delta variant spread across the country and took a devastating toll in less-vaccinated states in the South and West. It compared vaccination rates between children hospitalized with Covid and children hospitalized with other diseases.

Of the 179 Covid patients participating in the study, 3 percent were vaccinated and 97 percent were unvaccinated. Of the young Covid patients, 29 needed life support and two died; All of these patients are unvaccinated, the agency said. Hospital stays for vaccinated children with Covid tended to be shorter than for unvaccinated children.

Nearly three-quarters of the Covid patients in the study had at least one underlying health condition, including obesity, diabetes, asthma or respiratory disorders, putting them at higher risk of serious illness.

As of Monday, the CDC said 46 percent of children ages 12 to 15 were fully vaccinated nationwide, as were 54 percent of 16- and 17-year-olds. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is authorized for emergency use in children aged 12 to 15 years and is fully approved in persons aged 16 years and older. Booster shots are not permitted for anyone under the age of 18 in the United States.

Pediatric hospitalizations increased The CDC said the Delta variant had spread to the United States and reached its highest levels during the pandemic in September.

The clinical trial of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine had previously shown the vaccines to be highly effective in preventing cases of Covid in children, but did not examine efficacy against hospitalization in this group.