THE ESSENTIAL
- In France, the vaccination campaign has been extended to all children aged 5 to 11 since December 22, 2021.
- Since January 25, 2022, the agreement of a single parent is sufficient to vaccinate these children.
Parental vaccination once morest Sras-cov-2 also offers substantial protection to children, according to a new israeli study published in Science.
Two waves of infection compared
Between June 2021 and October 2021, a wave of infections dominated by the Delta variant swept through Israel. During this period, the research authors studied the health data of 181,307 unvaccinated children, and compared their parents vaccinated with a third dose of Pfizer to those who received only two doses (at least five months ago).
After analysis, they found that a single parent who received a booster dose reduced the risk of infection in children by 20.8%, while two members of a couple who received a booster dose reduced the same risk of contamination of 58.1%.
The scientists also conducted a similar study during an earlier wave, from December 2020 to March 2021, in which the Alpha variant was dominant in Israel. During this period, the authors studied the course of 400,733 unvaccinated children and adolescents. They compared their unvaccinated parents to those who received two doses of the vaccine and found that the indirect protection of the adults’ injections on the children was even stronger than previously.
Confirmed indirect protection
“This study highlights the indirect protection provided by vaccinated parents to their unvaccinated children, regardless of household size or age of the young, for both the Alpha variant and the Delta variant,” concludes Dr. Samah Hayek, director of the study conducted in particular by the Clalit Research Institute.
