Adolescent COVID-19 vaccine study ‘very encouraging’ for hesitant parents

A major study has found the rare side effect of myocarditis from the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine is far milder and less common in adolescents than complications of the virus itself, prompting calls for more parents to have their children immunised as vaccination rates lag.

Australia’s largest study of mRNA vaccine-associated myocarditis in adolescents and young adults at a Melbourne hospital found the condition had a “mild, self-resolving clinical course”, in research to be published in The Medical Journal of Australia on Monday.

The rare mRNA vaccine side effect of myocarditis is far milder and less common in adolescents than complications of the virus itself, an Australian study has found.Credit:AP

The Royal Australasian College of Physicians President Dr Jacqueline Small, a Sydney paediatrician, said she hoped the “very encouraging” findings would reassure parents still hesitating to get their children vaccinated against COVID-19.

“Even in these young people who were admitted to hospital in Melbourne, they were very easily treated and didn’t present with serious illness, and their stay in hospital was very short,” she said.

“We know that COVID-19 can be associated with severe illness and even, sadly, death for some children, which is why we encourage vaccination.”

Myocarditis – an inflammation of the heart muscle – is a rare side effect of mRNA vaccines, but one that has been used to spread vaccine misinformation.

Monash University researchers analysed data from 33 adolescents who presented at Monash Children’s Hospital with suspected or confirmed mRNA vaccine-associated myocarditis over four months and found it was overwhelmingly mild, with a median hospital stay of 2.3 days.

Lead author Dr Suraj Varma, a paediatric cardiologist at MonashHeart and Monash Children’s Hospital, said the findings would be “incredibly reassuring for parents” weighing up the risks and benefits of COVID-19 vaccination.

Varma said the chance of developing myocarditis from a COVID-19 infection in the unvaccinated was “at least about 10 times” higher than the chance of developing myocarditis as a vaccine side effect, and the virus also brought the risk of multi-system inflammatory syndrome or stroke.

There have been fifteen COVID-associated deaths in children aged nine and under since the start of the pandemic, and a further eight deaths in children and young people aged 10 to 19, according to Health Department data from August 5.

“That’s an indicator that it can be a serious disease, even if for most young people COVID is not as serious as it can be in older adults,” Small said.

“The benefits of COVID vaccination far outweigh the contraindications.”

In NSW, there were 70 children aged up to nine years admitted to hospital with or shortly after having COVID-19 in the week to July 30, including seven admitted to intensive care.

The Victorian health department could not provide an age breakdown of COVID-19 hospitalisations in the state.

Health Minister Mark Butler, who is working to improve COVID-19 immunisation and booster rates, said the research findings “should reassure parents that our vaccines are safe.”

“Being up-to-date with your COVID vaccinations is the best protection available to avoid becoming severely ill and needing hospitalisation,” the minister said.

“This is especially important for young people with underlying health conditions.”

The government last week made COVID-19 vaccines available to 70,000 high-risk infants and children aged between six months and five years, and Butler noted then that many parents of children already eligible had not taken up the opportunity.

The latest national data shows more than a million children aged 5 to 11 years, 48 per cent of this cohort, were yet to receive a single dose of a COVID-19 vaccine on August 5. Nearly one in six 12-to-15-year-olds, more than 200,000 children, had not received a COVID-19 vaccine dose.

Teenagers aged 16 and over are counted along with the adult population with two-dose coverage of 96 per cent, but almost a third are overdue for their booster.

Small said parents who were worried about myocarditis should monitor their children for the week following vaccination, particularly after the second dose, for symptoms such as chest pain, shortness of breath, fever, elevated heart rate ad general aches and pains.

Adolescent boys aged 16 to 17 years are more likely than other cohorts to experience the rare side effect.

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