The effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines in the prevention of post-COVID conditions in children and adolescents: a systematic literature review and meta-analysis

Objective: We performed a systematic literature review and meta-analysis on the effectiveness of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination against post-COVID conditions (long COVID) in the pediatric population. Design: Systematic literature review/meta-analysis. Methods: We searched PubMed, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), EMBASE, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Scopus, and Web of Science from December 1, 2019, to August 14, 2023, for studies evaluating the COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness against post-COVID conditions among vaccinated individuals < 21 years old who received at least 1 dose of COVID-19 vaccine. A post-COVID condition was defined as any symptom that was present 4 or more weeks after COVID-19 infection. We calculated the pooled diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) (95% CI) for post-COVID conditions between vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals. Results: Eight studies with 23,995 individuals evaluated the effect of vaccination on post-COVID conditions, of which 5 observational studies were included in the meta-analysis. The prevalence of children who did not receive COVID-19 vaccines ranged from 65% to 97%. The pooled prevalence of post-COVID conditions was 21.3% among those unvaccinated and 20.3% among those vaccinated at least once. The pooled DOR for post-COVID conditions among individuals vaccinated with at least 1 dose and those vaccinated with 2 doses were 1.07 (95% CI, 0.77–1.49) and 0.82 (95% CI, 0.63–1.08), respectively. Conclusions: A significant proportion of children and adolescents were unvaccinated, and the prevalence of post-COVID conditions was higher than reported in adults. While vaccination did not appear protective, conclusions were limited by the lack of randomized trials and selection bias inherent in observational studies.