A case control study to assess effectiveness of measles containing vaccines in preventing severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection in children

Currently, most licensed vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 infection are approved for adults and not for children. We conducted a test negative case-control study to assess the effectiveness of Measles Containing Vaccines (MCVs) against SARS-CoV-2 infection in Pune, India, in children who were ≥1 year and <18 years of age and were tested for SARS-CoV-2 infection by Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The enrolled participants included 274 SARS-CoV-2 positive cases (216 vaccinated and 58 unvaccinated) along with 274 SARS-CoV-2 negative controls (265 vaccinated and 9 unvaccinated). Of the 274 cases, 180 (65.7%) were asymptomatic while 94 (34.3%) were symptomatic, all with mild severity. The number of participants with symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection was significantly lower in the vaccinated group compared to the unvaccinated group (p < .0001). The unadjusted overall Vaccine Effectiveness (VE) in the vaccinated group compared to unvaccinated group was 87.4% (OR = 0.126, 95% CI of VE: 73.9–93.9) while the adjusted overall VE after adjusting for age and sex was 87.5% (OR = 0.125, 95% CI of VE: 74.2–94.0). MCVs reduced incidence of laboratory confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection in children. Number of symptomatic cases were also lower in the vaccinated group compared to the unvaccinated group. Results of our study have provided strong preliminary evidence that MCVs have a good effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2 infection in the pediatric population, which needs to be confirmed further through prospective randomized clinical trials.