Safety of COVID-19 vaccines and disease flares after vaccines in children with rheumatic disease

ABSTRACT

Objectives

Wide spread availability of safe and effective vaccines for COVID-19 in all countries is the best hope to end the COVID-19 pandemic. However, in developing countries, the hesitancy of the society about vaccination is an important problem in terms of public health. This study aimed to investigate the acceptability and tolerability of COVID-19 vaccines in the pediatric population diagnosed with rheumatic disease, as well as the attitudes toward these vaccines.

Methods

This is an observational, cross sectional, single center study. Pediatric patients with at least one diagnosis of rheumatic disease were included in this study to investigate patient and family acceptability and safety of COVID-19 vaccines.

Results

A total of 228 patients with rheumatic disease were included in this study. Ninety nine (43.4%) of the patients were juvenile idiopathic arthritis. One hundred and five (46%) of the patients were using biological agent treatment for their rheumatic disease, whereas 123 (54%) of the patients were not. No serious adverse effect related to the COVID-19 vaccine were observed in any of the patients. No disease activation was observed in any of them.

Conclusion

There are only a few studies evaluating of the safety and disease flare of COVID-19 vaccines in children with rheumatic disease. Although this study has some limitations, such as the small sample size of patients with different diagnoses, it appears that there is no increase in COVID-19 vaccination-related harms in the patients with rheumatic disease.

KEYWORDS:

• Adverse effects
• COVID-19
• childhood-onset rheumatic disease
• flare
• SARS-CoV-2 vaccine

Declaration of funding

No funding was recevied for the production of this mansucript

Disclosure of any financial/other conflicts of interest

The authors have no relevant conflicts of interest to disclose. Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Ethics approval, consent to participate and consent for publication

The written consents from the patient families were obtained according to the Declaration of Helsinki (1964) and the study was approved by the ethics committee of Dr. Sami Ulus Maternity and Child Health and Diseases Training and Research Hospital.

Availability of data and materials

Not applicable.

Authors’ contributions

Manuscript EAA, SO, EB; literature search EAA, SO, EB; study desing EAA, SO, EB; data collection EAA, IB, ST; data analysis EA, SO, EB, MB; data interpretation EAA, IB, ST; writing EAA, SO, EB, MB. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Acknowledgements

None stated.