Initial experience of the safety and tolerability of the BNT162b2 (Pfizer-Bio-N-Tech) vaccine in extremely vulnerable children aged 12-15 years.

Healthy children generally have a mild illness with SARS-COV-2; however, some comorbidities may predispose to severe COVID-19 disease. Neurological conditions were the predominant comorbidity of hospitalised children in the UK with COVID-19 (11%)1 and a larger proportion (26%) of those with severe/fatal disease.2 Children perceived to be at highest risk of COVID-19 were shielded, reducing risks of infection and therefore underrepresented in the data. Vaccination safety data for BNT162b2 (Pfizer-Bio-N-Tech) is now available from healthy adolescents age 12 to 15 years. Similar to adult studies, common side effects were mild-moderate pain at injection site (86%), fatigue (66%), headache (65%), and fever ≥38°C (20%).3 Although the side effects from adult studies were mild, they were inversely related to age, that is, younger participants (<55 years) had more side effects.4 The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) …