Safety profile of inactivated COVID-19 vaccine in indonesian adults.

Background: Vaccines are urgently needed to handle the morbidity and mortality of the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia. The inactivated vaccine is widely used in Indonesia's national immunization program due to its eligibility of stock, easier to transport, and considered to be more established than newer platforms. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the safety profile of the inactivated vaccine and analyze the safety profile between adults and the elderly. Methods: A prospective analytical study was conducted to evaluate the safety profile of inactivated COVID-19 vaccine among healthy adults aged ≥ 18 years from September 2nd to December 28th, 2021, at ten primary health centers from 5 districts in Jakarta, Indonesia. The participants were instructed to record the symptoms after inactivated COVID-19 vaccine injection in the diary card for 28 days. Chi-square tests were carried out to analyze the relationship between the adverse event following immunization (AEFI) in adults and elderly groups. Results: Four of 1113 participants were not included in this study due to the lack of follow-up. Out of 1109 participants, there were 1044 adults (18-59 years) and 65 elderly (>59 years). There were no serious AEFI cases reported. Most AEFI cases were mild to moderate and resolved after several days of injection. Local pain, myalgia and fatigue were the most frequent adverse events reported. We found that there was no correlation between the adults and elderly age group with the incidence of AEFI (p = 0.924) for local reactions (p = 0.181) and most of the systemic reactions (p = 0.629). However, there is an increased risk of fever in the elderly group compared to the adult group (OR 4.046, 95 % CI 1.794-9.124, p = 0.003) following immunization. Conclusions: Our study demonstrated that the inactivated COVID-19 vaccine is safe, considering that all symptoms experienced were mild to moderate and resolved entirely.

Expert review of global real-world data on COVID-19 vaccine booster effectiveness and safety during the omicron-dominant phase of the pandemic.

INTRODUCTION: COVID-19 vaccines have been highly effective in reducing morbidity and mortality during the pandemic. However, the emergence of the Omicron variant and subvariants as the globally dominant strains have raised doubts about the effectiveness of currently available vaccines and prompted debate about potential future vaccination strategies. AREAS COVERED: Using the publicly available IVAC VIEW-hub platform, we reviewed 52 studies on vaccine effectiveness (VE) after booster vaccinations. VE were reported for SARS-CoV-2 symptomatic infection, severe disease and death and stratified by vaccine schedule and age. In addition, a non-systematic literature review of safety was performed to identify single or multi-country studies investigating adverse event rates for at least two of the currently available COVID-19 vaccines. EXPERT OPINION: Booster shots of the current COVID-19 vaccines provide consistently high protection against Omicron-related severe disease and death. Additionally, this protection appears to be conserved for at least 3 months, with a small but significant waning after that. The positive risk-benefit ratio of these vaccines is well established, giving us confidence to administer additional doses as required. Future vaccination strategies will likely include a combination of schedules based on risk profile, as overly frequent boosting may be neither beneficial nor sustainable for the general population.

Educational videos to address vaccine hesitancy in childhood immunization.

BACKGROUND: As one of the essential programs that have been developed for decades, childhood immunizations are mandatory to protect children from vaccine-preventable diseases. Despite its availability and accessibility, immunization coverage has not reached the intended goals. Vaccine hesitancy and COVID-19 pandemic may threaten immunization coverage in children. This study aimed to evaluate the tailored educational videos to reduce vaccine hesitancy and analyze the changes in childhood routine immunization status. METHODS: This was an interventional quasi-experimental study in three subdistricts of North Jakarta, Indonesia. Participants were allocated into educational videos exposures (intervention group, n = 116) or to the digital version of the maternal and child health handbook (control group, n = 104). We administered a pre- and post-intervention vaccine hesitancy survey using the Parent Attitudes about Childhood Vaccines (PACV) questionnaire with cut-off scores of 50. RESULTS: A total of 220 parents were recruited in this study from June 18, 2021, to December 10, 2021. The pre-intervention PACV survey showed that 19 (8.6%) parents were vaccine-hesitant from both groups: 12 (10.3%) and 7 (6.7%) of parents among intervention and control groups. After the interventions, there were 8 (6.9%) and 8 (7.7%) vaccine-hesitant parents in the intervention and control groups, respectively. We found a significant difference in the post-intervention PACV median score between the intervention and control groups (17 vs 23; p = 0.035). Around 25% of parents have not completed their children's immunization status: 22.4% and 28.8% in the intervention and control groups, respectively. There was a significant difference between the proportion of PACV hesitancy on the immunization status within intervention and control groups (p = 0.001). CONCLUSION: There was a reduction in vaccine hesitancy after interventions. Educational videos intervention distributed through WhatsApp group was associated with lower vaccine hesitancy and can be used as health education tools among Indonesian parents in the community.