Dear Editor,
We would like to thank Dr. Rujittika Mungmunpuntipantip and Dr. Viroj Wiwanitkit for their interest in our manuscript “Audiological and vestibular symptoms following SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 vaccination in children aged 5-11 years” [1].
In Italy, all patients are routinely screened for contraindications and precautions before a vaccine is administered, using both standardized questionnaires and anamnestic interviews performed by experienced physicians.
Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that people of any age with underlying medical conditions are more likely to get severely ill, require hospitalization and die from SARS-CoV-2 infection [2]; therefore, children with comorbidities should be offered COVID-19 vaccination [3].
Our study suggests that COVID-19 vaccination can also be recommended for children with pre-existing unilateral hearing loss as these patients did not show an increased risk of audio-vestibular adverse events [1].
However, we agree with Dr. Rujittika Mungmunpuntipantip and Dr. Viroj Wiwanitkit that future studies should investigate the genetic background [4] as it may have an influence on the susceptibility and severity of COVID-19 [5], thus explaining the broad spectrum of clinical manifestations [6].
Funding
No funds, grants, or other support was received.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
All authors have approved the manuscript and agree with its submission.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest/competing interests.
References
- 1.Aldè M., Di Berardino F., Ambrosetti U., Barozzi S., Piatti G., Zanetti D., et al. Audiological and vestibular symptoms following SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 vaccination in children aged 5–11 years. Am J Otolaryngol. 2023;44(1) doi: 10.1016/j.amjoto.2022.103669. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 2.UNICEF Vaccine Confidence: Co-morbidities and COVID-19. 2022. https://www.unicef.org/romania/stories/vaccine-confidence-co-morbidities-and-covid-19 Available at: Accessed 30 Dec 2022.
- 3.WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION (WHO) Interim statement on COVID-19 vaccination for children. 2022. https://www.who.int/news/item/11-08-2022-interim-statement-on-covid-19-vaccination-for-children Available at: Accessed 30 Dec 2022.
- 4.Mungmunpuntipantip R., Wiwanitkit V. Audiological and vestibular symptoms following COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccination in children: correspondence. Am J Otolaryngol. 2023 doi: 10.1016/j.amjoto.2023.103793. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 5.Fricke-Galindo I., Falfán-Valencia R. Genetics insight for COVID-19 susceptibility and severity: a review. Front Immunol. 2021;12 doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2021.622176. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 6.Aldè M., Barozzi S., Di Berardino F., Zuccotti G., Consonni D., Ambrosetti U., et al. Prevalence of symptoms in 1512 COVID-19 patients: have dizziness and vertigo been underestimated thus far? Intern Emerg Med. 2022;17(5):1343–1353. doi: 10.1007/s11739-022-02930-0. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]