hankyoreh

A person sits to be monitored after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine at a school in Gyeonggi Province on Tuesday morning. (pool photo)

A middle school student who received the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine last month has come down with a serious case of myocarditis, which reports indicate may be an adverse reaction to the vaccine. Public health experts stressed that while vaccination can develop into acute myocarditis in extremely rare cases, children and teenagers should continue to be vaccinated because the benefits still outweigh the risks.

The Hankyoreh learned on Sunday that a 14-year-old girl in Incheon complained of headaches following her first dose of the Pfizer vaccine on Nov. 22. She was prescribed medication that alleviated her symptoms, but 12 days later, on Dec. 4, she fainted while exercising and was taken to a nearby hospital.

The girl was diagnosed with myocarditis and has faced a number of close calls during the past four weeks of treatment, including multiple instances of cardiac arrest. Following damage to her lungs and liver, she has been on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, a form of life support abbreviated as ECMO, at Samsung Medical Center in Seoul since Wednesday.

A battery of tests at the hospital reportedly failed to identify any factors other than the vaccination that could have triggered myocarditis.

“So far, no other factors have been identified that could have influenced the occurrence of myocarditis after vaccination and the development of heart failure. Because there are no immune issues or bacterial or viral infections that could have provoked myocarditis, it’s very likely that the myocarditis resulted from her vaccination,” said a source who spoke on condition of anonymity.

In general, acute myocarditis is exceedingly rare among children and teenagers, occurring at a rate of 1 in 50,000. Most of those cases are caused by a viral infection, but the doctors treating the girl said they couldn’t find any infection of that sort.

So far, the Korean authorities have only recognized a causal relationship in one case of severe myocarditis occurring after vaccination. In June, a man in his 20s died after receiving his first dose of the vaccine. The Korean government said that, as of early December, there had been five reports of myocarditis or pericarditis among vaccinated people aged 12-17 (all in recipients of the Pfizer vaccine) prior to the girl in Incheon. None of those cases have led to death, the government said.

In the US and other countries, most cases of myocarditis as an adverse reaction to inoculation with vaccines based on messenger RNA (mRNA) have occurred in young men.

In an interview posted to YouTube on Dec. 16, Paul Offit, a US pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases, noted that the incidence rate of myocarditis among children and teenagers is extremely rare, but that the rate can increase to 1 out of 10,000 among men aged 18-19 who have received two doses of COVID-19 vaccines. He said that most cases of myocarditis resulting from adverse reactions to vaccines were mild and that serious cases had not turned up.

The physician added that testing has shown that 1 in 45 young athletes who had been infected with COVID-19 experienced myocarditis. In other words, while it’s possible to contract myocarditis as an adverse reaction to vaccination, it’s much more common for myocarditis to develop after infection with COVID-19.

For those reasons, Korean medical experts argue that the vaccination drive for children and teenagers should continue.

“This girl’s case is very rare, but a rapidly increasing number of children and teenagers are suffering from COVID-19 as the number of confirmed cases rises. To enable vaccinations to continue, the government must quickly determine causality and provide support through its expert panel for compensating damage resulting from vaccination,” said Eom Joong-sik, a professor in the department of infectious disease at Gachon University Gil Medical Center.

According to data from the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), a total of nine patients aged 12-17 had severe or critical cases of COVID-19 between July and October. While the number of infected teenagers surged in November, following Korea’s gradual return to normal routines, none of their cases have been serious or critical.

The Incheon girl’s mother posted a petition on the Blue House website on Friday. “Who is going to believe the government or entrust their children to it if no one takes responsibility for vaccinating teenagers, which is something the government recommended? We’re struggling to pay 30 million won in hospital bills alone. Please help us,” the mother wrote in the petition.

“I’m told that we haven’t received an application for compensation in connection with the girl’s case. Once the application is filed, we’ll quickly provide support,” said an official at the KDCA.

By Lee Jae-ho and Lee Jung-ha, staff reporters

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