COVID-19 increases the risk of heart disease in children significantly more than vaccination - study
Kyiv • UNN
A study of 14 million children showed that COVID-19 increases the risk of inflammatory heart disease in children by 17 cases, while Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA vaccination reduces this risk. Vaccinated children have a lower risk of myocarditis than unvaccinated children, despite a rare side effect of vaccines.
COVID-19 coronavirus increases the risk of heart disease in children significantly more than vaccination against the disease. This is reported by UNN with reference to newscientist.com.
Details
The study involved almost 14 million children aged 5 to 18 years. Scientists found that in some children, after the first SARS-CoV-2 infection, 17 more cases of inflammatory diseases were registered.
Among those who received the Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA vaccine for the first time, almost 2 fewer cases of those who had the disease were registered.
Reports of COVID-19 infections causing myocarditis were published as early as April 2020. After the start of vaccination in December of the same year, reports of vaccine-induced myocarditis also began to appear, especially in young men, although these cases were usually relatively mild and people recovered quickly.
This very rare side effect of vaccines attracted a lot of media attention and caused a lot of concern. This was one of the reasons why routine vaccination of young children was not carried out in the UK until April 2022.
Recent studies confirm the results of previous research, which indicate that, despite this rare side effect, vaccinated children had a lower risk of developing myocarditis than unvaccinated children. This is explained by the fact that most children contracted the virus and, therefore, were at a higher risk of infection, the publication says.