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Knowledge and Attitude of Parents Regarding the Human Papillomavirus Vaccine as a New Component in the Saudi ... - Cureus

A Long Island midwife is accused of falsifying the vaccination of more than 1,000 New York state schoolchildren, most of whom are from the New York City metropolitan area, the state health department said on Wednesday.

The state alleged that midwife Jeannette Breen falsified the immunization records for about 1,500 children statewide at the beginning of the 2019-2020 school year. Breen was penalized $300,000 and permanently barred from administering vaccines reportable to the state, officials said.

The New York state Department of Health takes this issue seriously and will investigate and use all enforcement tools at its disposal against those who have been found to have committed such violations, said James McDonald, the state's health commissioner, in a statement.

Though the health department declined to specify which schools were affected due to privacy concerns, 300 schools statewide were notified on Wednesday morning with most of those children being from Long Island, New York City and the lower Hudson Valley, state health officials said. Most of the affected students from New York City were in Queens and Brooklyn, the state said. Students in Erie County located about 400 miles from Breens practice on Long Island were also among those who were affected.

By intentionally falsifying immunization records for students, this licensed health care professional not only endangered the health and safety of our school communities but also undermined public trust, said Betty Rosa, the state's education commissioner, in a statement.

The state said the fabrications included records of vaccines for polio, chickenpox, measles, mumps and rubella, but excluded COVID-19 vaccinations. Students must prove theyve received the missing vaccines or are in the process of obtaining them before they can return to school.

City and state officials did not immediately say how many schoolchildren were affected in New York City, and whether or not they attended public schools.

Breen did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

School vaccinations have been a flashpoint in New York state in recent years. The state eliminated non-medical religious exemptions to required school immunizations in 2019, prompting an outcry from anti-vaccine activists and some parents.

Parents of the affected schoolchildren allegedly sought out and paid Breen to evade state vaccination requirements shortly after religious exemptions ended, according to the health department.

Breen, who lacked the necessary federal approvals and authorizations, is also accused of giving the students an oral substance in the form of pellets, improperly marketed as vaccination alternatives.

Breen has paid half of the monetary penalty from the state and will be relieved from remaining payments if she complies with all terms of the agreement, which state officials have not made public.

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Midwife falsified vaccine records for 1500 schoolchildren, NY health department says - Gothamist

NEW YORK -- A New York midwife who gave nearly 1,500 children homeopathic pellets instead of required vaccinations has been fined $300,000, the state's health department announced this week.

Jeanette Breen, who operates Baldwin Midwifery on Long Island, administered the pellets as an alternative to vaccinations and then falsified their immunization records, the agency said Wednesday.

The scheme, which goes back least to the 2019-2020 school year, involved families throughout the state, but the majority reside on suburban Long Island. In 2019, New York ended a religious exemption to vaccine requirements for schoolchildren.

The health department said immunization records of the children who received the falsified records have been voided, and their families must now prove the students are up-to-date with their required shots or at least in the process of getting them before they can return to school.

"Misrepresenting or falsifying vaccine records puts lives in jeopardy and undermines the system that exists to protect public health," State Health Commissioner James McDonald said in a statement.

Breen, a state-licensed healthcare provider, supplied patients with the "Real Immunity Homeoprophylaxis Program," a series of oral pellets that are marketed as an alternative to vaccination but are not recognized or approved by state or federal regulators as valid immunizations, according to the health department.

She administered 12,449 of the fake immunizations to roughly 1,500 school-aged patients before submitting information to the state's immunization database claiming the children had received their required vaccinations against measles, mumps, rubella, polio, chickenpox, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B and a host of other diseases, the department said.

"Suffice it to say, Ms. Breen has provided excellent midwifery services for many years to many families, especially on Long Island. She is now toward the end of her career," David Eskew wrote in an emailed statement. "From her perspective, this matter is over, done with, and closed and she is now moving on with her life."

As part of the settlement, Breen has paid $150,000 of the $300,000 penalty, with the remainder suspended contingent upon her complying with state health laws and never again administering any immunization that must be reported to the state, according to the health department. She's also permanently banned from accessing the state's immunization records system.

Erin Clary, a health department spokesperson, said Thursday that while parents and legal guardians had sought out and paid Breen for her services, they weren't the focus of the agency's investigation.

State health officials say they're now in the process of notifying hundreds of affected school districts.

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NY midwife who gave kids homeopathic pellets instead of vaccines fined $300K for falsifying records - WTVD-TV

Depending on your age, you may not have gotten an HPV vaccine when you were younger. Thats because the vaccine wasnt available in the U.S. until 2006. Since that time, there has been a dramatic drop in the incidence of cancers caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV), as well as genital and anal warts, due to the vaccine.

There has been an 88 percent drop in infections among teen girls with HPV types that cause most HPV cancers and genital warts since the introduction of the vaccine in 2006, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Among young adult women, the drop in these infections is about 81 percent. Additionally, among all vaccinated women, pre-cancers caused by HPV types most often linked to cervical cancer has dropped by 40 percent.

The HPV vaccine currently used in the U.S. is Gardasil 9. It has been shown to create an antibody response in more than 98 percent of recipients within one month of completing the full vaccination series. Some people may have already been exposed to one or more types of HPV prior to vaccination, but the vaccine is still effective against other types included in the vaccine (the vaccine protects against nine HPV types) so it is suggested that people still get vaccinated even if they have already been exposed to the virus.

It is recommended that all children (females and males) get vaccinated against HPV at age 11 or 12, although vaccination can be given as young as age 9. Older kids, teens and young adults up to age 26 who have not yet been vaccinated should also get the vaccine. The vaccine is given in either two or three doses, depending on the age of the person when initially vaccinated.

HPV vaccination is not generally recommended for people over age 26 because it provides less benefit, primarily because more people have already been exposed to HPV in this age range. However, it may be worth a discussion with your healthcare provider if you are between the ages of 27 and 45 and have not previously been vaccinated to determine if HPV vaccination is right for you.

You may be wondering why boys need HPV vaccination if HPV is primarily associated with cervical cancer, but the fact is that boys can get some types of cancer that are also caused by HPV, including cancers of the head and neck, as well as cancers of the anal and genital area. They can also get genital and anal warts caused by HPV.

More than 135 million doses of HPV vaccines have been given in the U.S., according to the CDC. The vaccines have been shown to be safe and effective. The most common side effects include:

Any side effects experienced tend to be mild and get better within a day or two.

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The HPV Vaccine Really Works Heres the Proof - The Baton Rouge Clinic

In a recent article published in TheLancet, researchersexamined the association between under-vaccination against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outcomes across the United Kingdom (UK).

Study:Undervaccination and severe COVID-19 outcomes: meta-analysis of national cohort studies in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Image Credit:solarseven/Shutterstock.com

Previous studies have examined vaccine uptake in the UK; however, population-level studies examining the risk of severe COVID-19 outcomes in under-vaccinated people are lacking.

The UK COVID-19 vaccination programme started on December 8, 2020. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) recommended one COVID-19 vaccine dose for children aged five to 11 years, two for 1215-year-olds, and three and four for people aged 1674 and 75+.

Over 90% of the UK population above 12 years received the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine within a few months; however, its uptake declined as more doses were offered, especially among Black ethnicities, those older than 50 years, and those inhabiting more deprived or urban areas.

Clinical trials and observational epidemiological studies have shown the association of COVID-19 vaccine doses with COVID-19 outcomes, such as hospitalizations and deaths.

Researchers conducted separate cohort studies in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales using anonymized, harmonized electronic health record (EHR) data from national trusted research environments (TREs).

All four study cohorts included individuals at least five years of age, further stratified into groups: 511, 1215, 1674, and 75 years.

The outcomes of interest were the adjusted odds ratios (aORs) for under-vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 as of June 1, 2022, and severe COVID-19 outcomes between June 1 and September 30, 2022.

Undervaccination, i.e., non-receipt of the standard age-stratified JCVI recommended vaccine schedule, was assessed in each nation for several clinical and demographic groups and cumulatively.

The statistical analysis included these covariates: age group, gender, ethnicity, urban or rural residence, deprivation index, and QCOVID risk groups, derived primarily from general practitioner data, and its availability for some UK nations was limited.

For instance, ethnicity and public practitioner data were not available for Northern Ireland.

The team analyzed time to severe COVID-19 outcomes in different age groups separately for each nation using Cox proportional hazard models, where vaccine deficit was a time-dependent exposure.

Likewise, they fitted in logistic regressions across age groups to analyze under-vaccination as the dependent variable.

Additional tests helped the researchers assess collinearity and model performance, etc., where they used more covariates, such as COVID-19 test results, number of tests taken, health board, shielding status, size of household, and hospitalizations, including COVID-19-unrelated hospitalizations.

Finally, the researchers conducted a UK-wide meta-analysis of nation-specific analyses. In this study, they compared the estimates of the decrease in severe COVID-19 outcomes associated with under vaccination with a counterfactual scenario, where the UK population was fully vaccinated for COVID-19 by June 1, 2022.

As of June 1, 2022, the number of people under-vaccinated in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales was 26,985,570,938,420, 1,709,786, and 773,850.

These numbers corresponded to 458%, 498%, 342%, and 444% of the initial cohort size of each nation.

The effect size estimates for the number of risk groups varied across countries in the analysis where undervaccination was the outcome.

For instance, aORs for under vaccination were higher in individuals aged 8084 years and 85+ in Scotland compared with other nations.

It reflected different data availability for QCOVID risk groups and residual confounding from the number of risk groups.

Further, the study results suggested that younger individuals, those from more deprived regions, and of non-White ethnicity, or those with fewer comorbidities were more likely to be under-vaccinated for COVID-19.

Accordingly, of 40,393 severe COVID-19 outcomes across cohorts, 14,156 occurred in unvaccinated participants.

Reductions in severe COVID-19 outcomes over four months of follow-up varied for age groups; these were 210, 1,544, and 5,426 for 515, 1674, and 75+ years age groups, respectively.

In the meta-analysis for the 75-year-olds, aHRs for severe COVID-19 outcomes were 2.70, 3.13, 3.61, and 3.08 for one, two, three, and four dose(s) fewer than recommended.

Moreover, males in this age group showed higher aHR of severe COVID-19 outcomes than females.

The present study furnished precise estimates for the association between full vs. under vaccination and higher risk of severe COVID-19 outcomes for the four UK countries.

Results indicated that under-vaccination rates against COVID-19 in these UK countries ranged from 328%-498% among individuals aged five years or more.

Further analysis showed that had been the vaccine uptake higher, it would have resulted in a considerable reduction in severe COVID-19 outcomes, especially among at-risk subpopulations in the UK. This data could inform policy, public health, and research.

More importantly, the study highlights the significance of analyses on harmonized health datasets across the UK as it could be beneficial in understanding population health outcomes to help design better future health interventions.

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Age, ethnicity, and deprivation linked to lower COVID-19 vaccination rates in the UK - News-Medical.Net

Cervical cancer should be almost nonexistent, as it's one of the most treatable and preventable cancers. However, women in the United States are still dying at alarming rates.

In 2009, the US Congress established January as Cervical Cancer Awareness Month. This month serves as a public health campaign to educate people who have a cervix about how to take care of it. This includes noticing signs of cervical cancer, getting a vaccination, and checking in with a gynecologist.

Most forms of cervical cancer are caused by human papillomavirus (HPV). The two strands of HPV that cause 75 percent of cervical cancers can be prevented through the HPV vaccine a series of shots administered to people between the ages of 9 and 45. With such an effective solution, one might think cervical cancer was nothing to worry about and that our advocacy efforts should focus elsewhere.

US states like Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, where rates are especially high, prove otherwise. Also, because of legacies of anti-Blackness, systemic racism, discrimination, and inequitable healthcare services, Black people are disproportionately impacted by cervical cancer rates and deaths across the US.

Ensuring that healthcare is accessible and affordable including the HPV vaccination plays a pivotal role in addressing racial inequities around cervical cancer, including in who gets sick and who dies. But new risks need to be faced, too. This includes state lawmakers attacks on and the growing anti-vaccination movement.

Some states want to end public school vaccination mandates. Although HPV vaccination is not among those required before children can enroll in public schools, raising awareness about the HPV vaccine is a key part of the advocacy around cervical cancer prevention. The anti-vax movement has the potential to set this work back.

If young people can't receive sexual health education and vaccine information in schools, and if school mandates for vaccines are removed, the impact on cervical cancer rates could be devastating. This is why campaigns like Georgias Adolescent Power and Potential which call for legislation that would mandate sexual education and vaccination information in schools need our attention. Cervical cancer is highly preventable, and we should not allow lawmakers to strip these healthcare decisions from young people, including Black girls and youth.

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US Lawmakers Should Protect Vaccination Mandates, Sex Ed in Schools - Human Rights Watch

January 18, 2024

2 min read

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COVID-19 vaccination reduces the risk for long COVID in children, according to findings from a study of more than 1 million children published in Pediatrics.

Although research has shown that many children experience persistent symptoms that last months after a SARS-CoV-2 infection, physicians have said that awareness of long COVID in children is lacking.

When we think about how to prevent long COVID, obviously, one of the first things that we think about is vaccine effectiveness, Hanieh Razzaghi, PhD, MPH, a data scientist at The Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), told Healio. There are a lot of data specifically clinical trial data that look at vaccine efficacy, but the question about long COVID still remained unanswered. So, we were very motivated to undertake this.

There was urgency to the investigation, another

We're still just scratching the surface of what might treat long COVID, Charles Bailey, MD, PhD, attending physician in the cancer center and academic investigator at CHOP, told Healio. Most of the access to those is for adults, so there actually aren't a lot of treatment options available for children, and that makes prevention even more important.

Razzaghi, Bailey and colleagues studied data from 17 health systems to assess vaccine effectiveness against long COVID in two groups of patients aged between 5 and 11 years and 12 and 17 years and the time period. The vaccination rate was 67% in the cohort of 1,037,936 children.

According to the researchers, the incidence of probable long COVID in the cohort was 4.5% and the incidence of diagnosed long COVID was 0.7%. They estimated that vaccine effectiveness within 12 months against long COVID was 35.4% among children with probable long COVID and 41.7% among children diagnosed with long COVID.

Estimated vaccine effectiveness was higher in the older age group (50.3%) compared with younger children (23.8%), and higher at 6 months (61.4%) than at 18 months (10.6%).

Children vaccinated after recovering from COVID-19 who endured a subsequent case of the illness also appeared to benefit, with a calculated vaccine effectiveness of 46% against probable long COVID.

One of the things that was very interesting was that the effectiveness did wane over time, Razzaghi said. It was most effective within 6 months of the vaccine. Within a year, and then at 18 months, we were still seeing a protective effect, but it was reduced.

Bailey noted that protection for teenagers looked significantly better than for younger children.

I suspect that a lot of what's happening there is that we're better at spotting long COVID in teenagers, who can talk to us about how they're feeling, Bailey said. It gave me some pause because I think it tells me that we need to keep learning about what long COVID looks like in younger children.

COVID-19 vaccine reduces long COVID in children. https://www.chop.edu/news/covid-19-vaccine-reduces-long-covid-children. Published Jan. 16, 2024. Accessed Jan. 17, 2024.

Razzaghi H, et al. Pediatrics. 2023;doi:10.1542/peds.2023-064446.

Ziyad Al-Aly, MD

This is an interesting and well-done study. The news is welcome and supports the growing body of evidence that vaccines work they don't only reduce the risk for severe disease (hospitalization and death) in the acute phase but also reduce the risk for long COVID. The evidence base is less well developed in children than in adults. This study is certainly a welcome addition to the literature. I do hope it motivates better uptake of vaccination among children.

The study also shows that although vaccines work (in reducing the risk for long COVID), they are not a perfect shield. To achieve maximum risk reduction, additional layers of prevention measures are needed.

Ziyad Al-Aly, MD

Chief of research and development

VA St. Louis Health Care System

Disclosures: Al-Aly reports no relevant financial disclosures.

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Disclosures: Bailey and Razzaghi report no relevant financial disclosures. Please see the study for all other authors relevant financial disclosures.

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Vaccination reduces long COVID risk in children, study shows - Healio

Data on how well and how long mRNA COVID vaccines protect adolescents from severe COVID-19 infections are scarce, but newly published findings from a large, matched cohort study from young people in four Nordic countries found high efficacy that lasted as long as a year.

The study's main focus was the impact of primary vaccination on hospitalizations at 6- and 12-month follow-up, but the researchers also looked at the effect on lab-confirmed infections. The team reported its findings yesterday in Pediatrics. The group also examined the effectiveness of the Moderna vaccine and the impact of mixed doses of Pfizer-BioNTech and Modernacalled heterologous vaccinationfor the primary schedule.

The study was conducted during a time that spanned both Delta and Omicron SARS-COV-2 circulation, from May 28, 2021, to April 30, 2023. From nationwide registers in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, researchers included 526,966 adolescents ages 12 to 17 who had gotten two mRNA vaccine doses, each with a matched unvaccinated control.

COVID vaccination in the age-group began in the four countries in the summer and fall of 2021. However, in early October of that year, Denmark, Finland, and Norway halted use of the Moderna vaccine due to safety concerns. For the same reason, Sweden barred its use in all people younger than 30.

For Pfizer-BioNTech, vaccine effectiveness (VE) against hospitalization was high, at 72.6% (95% confidence interval [CI], 62.5% to 82.7%) at the 6-month mark. Compared with unvaccinated adolescents, risk difference (RD) was2.8 (95% CI, 4.5% to 1.0%) per 10,000 vaccinated after 6 months. For Moderna, VE and RD were 86.0% (95% CI, 56.8% to 100.0%) and 2.1 (95% CI, 4.0 to 0.2), and for heterologous vaccination, VE and RD were 80.7% (95% CI, 58.0% to 100.0%) and 5.5 (95% CI, 15.5 to 4.6).

At 12 months, VE against hospitalization for Pfizer-BioNTech was 65.6% (95% CI, 55.4% to 75.8%), for Moderna was 91.0% (95% CI, 72.6% to 100.0%), and for heterologous vaccination was 82.5% (95% CI, 63.6% to 100.0%).

The team found that results were similar for both Delta- and Omicron-dominant periods.

Hospitalizations were rare, which isn't surprising, given the younger healthy population. They ranged from fewer than 5 in vaccinated kids to 37 in their unvaccinated peers across 6 months of follow-up and from 8 to 140 at 12 months in the respective groups.

The authors said the VE findings against hospitalization in adolescents were similar to earlier data for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, but only a few studies have estimated VE 6 months after the primary vaccine series. They noted that earlier studies were mixed on durability of protection.

When the team looked at VE against lab-confirmed COVID at 6 months, the estimated it was 22.2% (95% CI, 4.5% to 39.8%) for Pfizer-BioNTech, 3.6% (95% CI, 37.0% to 44.1%) for Moderna, and 27.8% (95% CI, 1.1% to 56.7%)for mixed vaccination. Findings were similar for the group's 12-month estimate.

The authors included a caveat, however, that estimating VE against infection had limitations. In the early months of 2022, some Nordic countries shifted away from routine polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing as home antigen testing became more common.

The researchers said their estimate of COVID VE in teens needs to take into account absolute case reductions, especially considering the low number of hospitalizations, even in unvaccinated adolescents.

They note that vaccination prevented 3.5 to 6.2 COVID hospitalizations per 10,000 over 12 months, which for comparison is much lower than the 27.1 per 10,000 found in a Finnish study of children ages 6 weeks to 18 months who received the 10-valent pneumococcal vaccine.

"Therefore, the impact of primary vaccine schedules for COVID-19 seemed to be modest among the healthy adolescents in terms of absolute numbers," they wrote.

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COVID vaccine performed well at preventing hospital illness in teens - University of Minnesota Twin Cities

Bivalent (two-strain) COVID-19 vaccines help protect against COVID-19related thromboembolic events, including strokes, embolisms, and heart attacks, more so than monovalent (one-strain) vaccines, according to a study today in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

The study was based on outcomes seen among Medicare enrollees ages 65 and older and adults ages 18 years or older with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) receiving dialysis. Outcomes among those who had received a bivalent mRNA COVID-19 booster were compared to patients who had only the monovalent COVID-19 primary vaccine series.

The Medicare beneficiaries, who did not have compromised immune systems (ie, were immunocompetent), entered the study on September 4, 2022. Researchers updated vaccination status daily. Follow-up continued until March 4, 2023, or a COVID-19related thromboembolic event.

The authors defined a thromboembolic event as an ischemic stroke, venous thromboembolism, or myocardial infarction from 7 days before through 30 days after COVID-19 diagnosis.

Among 12,706,176 Medicare beneficiaries aged 65 years and older who had previously received an original COVID19 vaccine, 5,683,208 (44.7%) received a bivalent dose. Among 78,618 Medicare beneficiaries aged 18 and older years with ESRD receiving dialysis, 23,229 (29.5%) received a bivalent dose, including 7,239 (31.2%) aged 18 to 64 years and 15,990 (68.8%) aged 65 years or older.

For both those 65 and older and those with ESRD, getting a bivalent booster was associated with getting a seasonal flu vaccine, and an original monovalent booster.

During the study period, 22,001 Medicare beneficiaries had a COVID-19related thromboembolic event, as did 1,040 ERSD beneficiaries. The researchers calculated an adjusted vaccine effectiveness (VE) against COVID-19related thromboembolic events among immunocompetent beneficiaries aged 65 years and older of 47%, with lower VE estimates more than 60 days after bivalent vaccine receipt (42%) compared with VE estimates 7 to 59 days after bivalent vaccine receipt (54%).

For those with ESRD, adjusted VE against COVID-19related thromboembolic events was 51%, with lower VE estimates more than 60 days after bivalent vaccine receipt (45%) than 7 to 59 days after bivalent vaccine receipt (56%).

"These findings can be interpreted as the incremental benefit of a recent bivalent dose compared with earlier receipt of original monovalent doses and are consistent with reported lower rates of COVID-19related thromboembolic events among vaccinated than among unvaccinated persons," the authors said.

These findings can be interpreted as the incremental benefit of a recent bivalent dose compared with earlier receipt of original monovalent doses.

Moreover, the findings are notable in light of a vaccine safety signal detected in January 2023 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which suggested a possible link between receipt of a Pfizer-BioNTech bivalent COVID-19 mRNA vaccine and an increased the risk for an ischemic stroke event in the 21 days following vaccination in people age 65 and older.

That signal has not been proven, and a review of additional studies has not provided clear and consistent evidence of a safety problem with ischemic stroke and bivalent mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, the authors said.

In conclusion, the investigators said their study suggests adults over the age of 65 and those with ESRD should remain up to date on boosters.

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Bivalent vaccines help prevent COVID-related stroke, heart attack, US data show - University of Minnesota Twin Cities

A recent study has revealed the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines in preventing long COVID.

While vaccines have proved effective to prevent severe COVID-19, their impact to prevent long-term symptoms have not yet been fully understood. But a research team at the University of Oxford'sNuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology, and Musculoskeletal Sciences (NDORMS) has found that vaccination against COVID-19 consistently reduced the risk of long COVID symptoms.

Dani Prieto-Alhambra, Professor of Pharmaco- and device epidemiology, who led the study explained: Vaccines against COVID-19 were rapidly developed to tackle the pandemic and to date eight vaccines have received authorisation from international regulators including EMA and MHRA, with billions of doses delivered to date. These vaccines proved to be highly effective in preventing severe COVID-19 but its known that around 1 in 10 people suffer from persistent symptoms, what we call long COVID. We wanted to assess if COVID vaccines had any impact on long COVID symptoms, and obtained funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) to conduct a study to research this.

Published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, the study conducted extensive analyses using primary care electronic health records from the UK, Spain, and Estonia. The team examined data from more than 20 million vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals and identified cases of long COVID based on specific criteria defined by the WHO (World Health Organisation). The study focused on adults who were registered for at least 180 days in each respective country.

Across the different cohorts analysed, the researchers observed a significant decrease in the occurrence of long COVID among vaccinated individuals compared to those who were unvaccinated.

Dr Annika Jodicke, Senior Pharmacoepidemiologist and study co-lead, said: We were able to demonstrate how both vaccines prevented the development of persistent COVID symptoms. Additionally, we compared different vaccinations and found that the BNT162b2 vaccine (BioNTech/Pfizer) provided better protection against long COVID compared to the ChAdOx1 vaccine (Oxford/AstraZeneca).

Dr Marti Catala, Senior Data Scientist and lead author of the manuscript, added: Thanks to our international collaborations, we replicated our analyses using data from Spain and Estonia. Our findings were consistent across the three countries and many different populations, emphasising the critical role that vaccination plays in protecting individuals from the long-term consequences of COVID-19.

Funded by the NIHR through a specific call to research long COVID prevention and treatment, and with partial support from the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre (BRC), the study offers valuable insights to inform public health strategies and vaccination campaigns worldwide.

The study, 'The effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines to prevent longCOVID symptoms: staggered cohort study of data fromthe UK, Spain, and Estonia', is published inThe Lancet Respiratory Medicine.

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COVID-19 vaccines found to be effective in reducing long COVID symptoms - University of Oxford