Preventive Efficacy of Pneumococcal Conjugated Vaccine (Population Aspects)

Relevance. Pneumococcal disease remains an urgent public health problem, despite mass immunization of infants and young children. The impact of children’s universal vaccination on the morbidity and etiological structure in various clinical forms of infection remains unclear in children and adults. Аim. Тo evaluate the herd effect of children’s mass immunization with a 13-valent conjugated pneumococcal vaccine. Materials and Methods. The prophylactic efficacy of mass vaccination is studied within comparative retrospective epidemiological analysis of incidence rates and etiological structure of bacterial meningitis, ear diseases and mastoiditis, and community-acquired pneumonia in children and adults of Krasnoyarsk region in the pre- and post-vaccination periods, according to the official statistics and microbiological monitoring. Results. The changes in decrease of incidence rates with all clinical forms of pneumococcal infection except community-acquired pneumonia are revealed both in children and adults during mass immunization. Etiological structure changes and also changes of S. pneumoniae serotype distribution are detected in major clinical forms of infection. Conclusion. Reducing the incidence rates in children is determined predominantly by vaccinal prevention. The observed decrease of incidence rates in adults is the result of reducing the number of pneumococcal infection sources among children (herd immunity).

Evaluation of Clinical and Immune Responses in Recovered Children with Mild COVID-19

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread globally and variants continue to emerge, with children are accounting for a growing share of COVID-19 cases. However, the establishment of immune memory and the long-term health consequences in asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic children after severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection are not fully understood. We collected clinical data and whole blood samples from discharged children for 6–8 months after symptom onset among 0-to-14-year-old children. Representative inflammation signs returned to normal in all age ranges. The infants and young children (0–4 years old) had lung lesions that persisted for 6–8 months and were less responsive for antigen-specific IgG secretion. In the 5-to-14-year-old group, lung imaging abnormalities gradually recovered, and the IgG-specific antibody response was strongest. In addition, we found a robust IgM+ memory B cell response in all age. Memory T cells specific for the spike or nucleocapsid protein were generated, with no significant difference in IFN-γ response among all ages. Our study highlights that although lung lesions caused by COVID-19 can last for at least 6–8 months in infants and young children, most children have detectable residual neutralizing antibodies and specific cellular immune responses at this stage.

Ingestion of A Sharp Foreign Body by an Infant

A four-month-old infant, previously healthy and developmentally normal, presented to the emergency department (ER) of a tertiary care hospital with hematemesis and pallor for one day, as well as a three-week history of irritability and intermittent vomiting. The infant was taken to various hospitals in their town, where he was given symptomatic treatment for vomiting and the mother was advised to feed infant. Nothing out of the ordinary was reported by the parents. The infant's symptoms were managed in the ER, and baseline labs were performed to determine the cause of the blood-stained vomiting and pallor. Except for a low Hb level, the baseline labs were normal. An abdominal x-ray revealed a stainlesssteel blade in his stomach. The ingestion of a blade was unknown to the parents. The case was referred to pediatric gastroenterology for further treatment. The blade was removed through endoscopy, and recovery was uneventful. Conclusion: The importance of supervising infants and young children under all circumstances is emphasized

Safety and Immunogenicity of a Shigella Bivalent Conjugate Vaccine (ZF0901) in 3-Month- to 5-Year-Old Children in China

No licensed Shigella vaccine is presently available globally. A double-blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled, age descending phase II clinical trial of a bivalent conjugate vaccine was studied in China. The vaccine ZF0901 consisted of O-specific polysaccharides purified and detoxified from lipopolysaccharide (LPS) of S. flexneri 2a and S. sonnei and covalently bonded to tetanus toxoid. A total of 224, 310, and 434 children, consented by parents or guardians, aged 3 to 6 and 6 to 12 months and 1 to 5 years old, respectively, were injected with half or full doses, with or without adjuvant or control Hib vaccine. There were no serious adverse reactions in all recipients of ZF0901 vaccine independent of age, dosage, number of injections, or the adjuvant status. Thirty days after the last injection, ZF0901 induced robust immune responses with significantly higher levels of type-specific serum antibodies (geometric mean concentrations (GMCs) of IgG anti-LPS) against both serotypes in all age groups compared with the pre-immune or the Hib control (p < 0.0001). Here, we demonstrated that ZF0901 bivalent Shigella conjugate vaccine is safe and immunogenic in infants and young children and is likely suitable for routine immunization.

Binding and Neutralizing Antibody Responses to SARS-CoV-2 in Infants and Young Children Exceed Those in Adults

SARS-CoV-2 infections are frequently milder in children than adults, suggesting that immune responses may vary with age. However, information is limited regarding SARS-CoV-2 immune responses in young children. We compared Receptor Binding Domain binding antibody (RBDAb) and SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibody (neutAb) in children aged 0-4 years, 5-17 years, and in adults aged 18-62 years in a SARS-CoV-2 household study. Among 55 participants seropositive at enrollment, children aged 0-4 years had >10-fold higher RBDAb titers than adults (373 vs.35, P<0.0001), and the highest RBDAb titers in 11/12 households with seropositive children and adults. Children aged 0-4 years had 2-fold higher neutAb than adults, resulting in higher binding to neutralizing (B/N)Ab ratios compared to adults (1.9 vs. 0.4 for ID50, P=0.0002). Findings suggest that young children mount robust antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 following community infections. Additionally, these results support using neutAb to measure the immunogenicity of COVID-19 vaccines in children aged 0-4 years.

How the Emotional Environment Shapes the Emotional Life of the Child

Emotion understanding facilitates the development of healthy social interactions. To develop emotion knowledge, infants and young children must learn to make inferences about people's dynamically changing facial and vocal expressions in the context of their everyday lives. Given that emotional information varies so widely, the emotional input that children receive might particularly shape their emotion understanding over time. This review explores how variation in children's received emotional input shapes their emotion understanding and their emotional behavior over the course of development. Variation in emotional input from caregivers shapes individual differences in infants’ emotion perception and understanding, as well as older children's emotional behavior. Finally, this work can inform policy and focus interventions designed to help infants and young children with social-emotional development.