Course: Severity of Hospitalizations From SARS-CoV-2 vs Influenza and Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infection in Children Aged 5 to 11 Years in 11 US States
CME Credits: 1.00
Released: 2022-02-21
In October 2021, the US Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization for the BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) COVID-19 vaccine to be used in children aged 5 to 11 years to reduce costly hospitalizations. By that time, for children in this age group, there had been 1.8 million people diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 infection and 143 deaths, with more than 8000 hospitalizations. However, very little is known about the severity of these hospitalizations relative to the 2 most common childhood viruses, the influenza virus and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which resemble the SARS-CoV-2 virus. In this study, we compared the January through March 2021 hospitalizations of children aged 5 to 11 years who were diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 infection and multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C; a sequela of COVID-19 disease) with those hospitalizations of children aged 5 to 11 years infected with influenza and RSV.
Educational Objective
To identify the key insights or developments described in this article
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