Pre-COVID19 pandemia vaccines could have a nonspecific effect in preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection in the pediatric population

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic raised an unexpected challenge for the medicine and pharmaceutical industry. The primary goal in a short timeframe was to fight the spreading of SARS-CoV-2 by any means, starting from social distancing, wearing face masks, and, in the end, finding a vaccine as effective as possible in preventing the virus spread. Studies were published from the first months of the pandemic, trying to show the way that this virus attacks the host and how it is transmitted in communities. Some data were contradictory, but one fact became obvious – children have a lower risk of infection with SARS-CoV-2. Data collected from many studies showed that some vaccines that were already in use before the COVID-19 pandemics are efficient in preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection. In this paper, we tried to summarize the nonspecific effects of preexisting vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 infection.