Browsing by Author "Flores, Juan Carlos"

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    Effectiveness of an inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in children and adolescents: a large-scale observational study
    (ELSEVIER, 2023) Jara, Alejandro; Undurraga, Eduardo A.; Flores, Juan Carlos; Zubizarreta, Jose R.; Gonzalez, Cecilia; Pizarro, Alejandra; Ortuno-Borroto, Duniel; Acevedo, Johanna; Leo, Katherinne; Paredes, Fabio; Bralic, Tomas; Vergara, Veronica; Leon, Francisco; Parot, Ignacio; Leighton, Paulina; Suarez, Pamela; Rios, Juan Carlos; Garcia-Escorza, Heriberto; Araos, Rafael
    Background Policymakers urgently need evidence to adequately balance the costs and benefits of mass vaccination against COVID-19 across all age groups, including children and adolescents. In this study, we aim to assess the effectiveness of CoronaVac's primary series among children and adolescents in Chile. Methods We used a large prospective national cohort of about two million children and adolescents 6-16 years to estimate the effectiveness of an inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine (CoronaVac) in preventing laboratory-confirmed symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection (COVID-19), hospitalisation, and admission to an intensive care unit (ICU) associated with COVID-19. We compared the risk of individuals treated with a complete primary immunization schedule (two doses, 28 days apart) with the risk of unvaccinated individuals during the follow-up period. The study was conducted in Chile from June 27, 2021, to January 12, 2022, when the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant was predominant but other variants of concern were co-circulating, including Omicron. We used inverse probability-weighted survival regression models to estimate hazard ratios of complete immunization over the unvaccinated status, accounting for time-varying vaccination exposure and adjusting for relevant demographic, socioeconomic, and clinical confounders.Findings The estimated adjusted vaccine effectiveness for the inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in children aged 6-16 years was 74.5% (95% CI, 73.8-75.2), 91.0% (95% CI, 87.8-93.4), 93.8% (95% CI, 87.8-93.4) for the prevention of COVID-19, hospitalisation, and ICU admission, respectively. For the subgroup of children 6-11 years, the vaccine effectiveness was 75.8% (95% CI, 74.7-76.8) for the prevention of COVID-19 and 77.9% (95% CI, 61.5-87.3) for the prevention of hospitalisation.Interpretation Our results suggest that a complete primary immunization schedule with the inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine provides effective protection against severe COVID-19 disease for children 6-16 years.Copyright & COPY; 2023 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
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    Effectiveness of CoronaVac in children 3-5 years of age during the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron outbreak in Chile
    (NATURE PORTFOLIO, 2022) Jara, Alejandro; Undurraga, Eduardo A.; Zubizarreta, Jose R.; Gonzalez, Cecilia; Acevedo, Johanna; Pizarro, Alejandra; Vergara, Veronica; Soto-Marchant, Mario; Gilabert, Rosario; Flores, Juan Carlos; Suarez, Pamela; Leighton, Paulina; Eguiguren, Pablo; Carlos Rios, Juan; Fernandez, Jorge; Garcia-Escorza, Heriberto; Araos, Rafael
    The outbreak of the B.1.1.529 lineage of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) (Omicron) has caused an unprecedented number of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases, including pediatric hospital admissions. Policymakers urgently need evidence of vaccine effectiveness in children to balance the costs and benefits of vaccination campaigns, but, to date, the evidence is sparse. Leveraging a population-based cohort in Chile of 490,694 children aged 3-5 years, we estimated the effectiveness of administering a two-dose schedule, 28 days apart, of Sinovac's inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine (CoronaVac). We used inverse probability-weighted survival regression models to estimate hazard ratios of symptomatic COVID-19, hospitalization and admission to an intensive care unit (ICU) for children with complete immunization over non-vaccination, accounting for time-varying vaccination exposure and relevant confounders. The study was conducted between 6 December 2021 and 26 February 2022, during the Omicron outbreak in Chile. The estimated vaccine effectiveness was 38.2% (95% confidence interval (CI), 36.5-39.9) against symptomatic COVID-19, 64.6% (95% CI, 49.6-75.2) against hospitalization and 69.0% (95% CI, 18.6-88.2) against ICU admission. The effectiveness against symptomatic COVID-19 was modest; however, protection against severe disease was high. These results support vaccination of children aged 3-5 years to prevent severe illness and associated complications and highlight the importance of maintaining layered protections against SARS-CoV-2 infection.