Higher Covid vaccination rates could help protect children from asthma attacks, WHO study finds. research.
While previous studies show that vaccination helps prevent COVID-19 disease, the authors believe this is the first study to assess whether vaccination against COVID-19 is associated with a reduction in asthma symptoms in children, by preventing viral illness in children with asthma.
US researchers examined the prevalence of asthma symptoms reported by parents in more than 150,000 children in the National Survey of Children’s Health between 2018-19 and 2020-21, broken down by US state.
The data was then compared with the percentage of people aged five and over who were vaccinated in 2020-2021, with age-adjusted Covid death rates, and with any requirements for wearing face masks in enclosed spaces.
Researchers then calculated any changes in the prevalence of reported asthma symptoms in children and found that vaccination against Covid may help protect asthmatic children from Covid infection and may also provide protection against other coronaviruses, such as the common cold.
According to the study, published in Jama Network Open, the rate of asthma symptoms in children fell by 0.36 percentage points for every 10 percentage point increase in Covid vaccination rates across US states.
Dr Andy Whittamore, Clinical Lead at Asthma + Lung UK, said: “Two million children in the UK are living with asthma. Infections such as Covid-19 and flu can cause irritation and inflammation in the airways of people with asthma. This can lead to an increase in mucus and narrowing of the airways, which in turn can cause symptoms such as shortness of breath, wheezing, chest tightness and coughing, and potentially trigger an asthma attack.
“So it’s important that children with asthma get all the vaccinations they’re entitled to, such as flu, to keep them safe. It’s also vital to make sure your child takes their preventer inhaler every day and has their reliever inhaler with them at all times.”
Every child with asthma should have an annual asthma checkup with a health care provider and develop an asthma action plan that explains what medications they should take each day to reduce the risk of an asthma attack and what to do if symptoms worsen, he added.
Dr. Matthew Davis, chief scientific officer of Nemours Children’s Health and lead author of the study, said: “We found that states with higher population-level Covid-19 vaccination rates were likely to have larger declines in the percentage of parents reporting that their children had asthma symptoms, compared to before the pandemic.”
In contrast, the study also found that the decline in parent-reported asthma symptoms in children at the state level was not associated with the number of Covid infections in the state or with whether the state mandated face masks in 2021.
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Asthma attacks are often triggered when someone with a history of the condition develops a viral respiratory infection. Studies of influenza vaccination over the past 50 years indicate that asthmatics who are vaccinated against influenza are less likely to get asthma attacks requiring hospitalization.
Higher Covid vaccination rates could be associated with lower rates of asthma symptoms in children in two ways, the study suggested. First, higher vaccination rates in the general population could indicate that children with asthma are more likely to be vaccinated against Covid than children with asthma in other states with lower Covid vaccination rates. Second, higher vaccination rates could make it less likely for viruses to spread from person to person in the community, reducing the risk to asthmatic children.
However, responding to the findings, Seif Shaheen, professor of respiratory epidemiology at Queen Mary University of London, said the results should be treated with “extreme caution” as there are likely multiple factors associated with childhood asthma and the likelihood of vaccination that could confound the findings, but these studies were “useful for generating hypotheses that can be tested in more rigorous observational studies of individuals”.