The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT VACCINE REACTIONS
Like all new pharmaceuticals, the vaccines that have been authorized to protect against COVID- 19 come with some safety concerns and side effects. Many people who’ve received the shots have experienced fever, headache and pain at the site of the injection. These side effects generally disappear quickly.
A small number of recipients have had a serious, but treatable, allergic
1. What’s known about the deaths?
Norwegian officials were the first to report people dying after being inoculated, saying in mid- January that 33 people age 75 and older had died a short time after receiving the coronavirus vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc. and Biontech SE. After a review, a committee of the World Health Organization said that the fatalities were “in line with the expected, all- cause mortality rates and causes of death in the subpopulation of frail, elderly individuals.” The committee concluded that the riskbenefit balance of the vaccine “remains favorable in the elderly.”
In the U. S., which is using vaccines from PfizerBiontech, Moderna Inc. and Johnson & Johnson, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that as of March 8, there were 1,637 reported deaths among inoculated people, a rate of 0.002%, and no evidence suggests a link.
2. What about the serious allergic reactions? What accounts for them?
The body fights foreign invaders through a variety of mechanisms that include making protective proteins called antibodies, releasing toxins that kill microbes and marshaling guardian cells to battle the infection. As in any conflict, sometimes the effort to repel an infection can itself be damaging. In rare cases, it can produce runaway inflammation and swelling of tissues in a serious allergic reaction called anaphylaxis. As of January, no anaphylaxis-related deaths had been reported in the U. S. from either the Moderna or the Pfizer- Biontech vaccines in use here, according to the CDC. reaction, called anaphylaxis. Small numbers have experienced blood clots, and others have had a form of temporary facial paralysis or weakness known as Bell’s palsy, but no connection to vaccines has been established. A few governments have reported deaths following administration of coronavirus vaccines, but medical specialists have found no evidence the inoculations were to blame.
3. How often have vaccines triggered anaphylaxis?
In the U. S., according to the CDC, it occurs in just two to five people for every million receiving a coronavirus vaccine. The risk of contracting COVID- 19 outweighs that posed by the vaccines, officials and clinicians say.
4. What’s being done to manage the risk?
The U. K. and U. S. have advised people who have allergies to any component of a coronavirus vaccine not to receive it.
5. What’s known about blood clots?
Several countries, mainly in Europe, suspended use either of all Astrazeneca’s coronavirus vaccine or doses from a particular batch following reports of blood clots in recipients, including one death in Austria and another in Denmark. The European Medicines Agency said it was investigating but noted there was no indication of a connection to the vaccine. The company said Sunday that the number of cases — 37 out of 17 million shots administered — was lower than what would be expected to occur naturally in a general population of that size. It also said that participants getting the vaccine in studies had fewer clots than those given placebo.
6. What about the cases of Bell’s palsy?
In studies testing the Moderna and PfizerBiontech inoculations, more people developed Bell’s palsy, which typically affects just one side of the face, after receiving vaccine doses than placebo shots. The imbalance turned out not to be substantiated, however, based on the massive safety database the CDC has collected on millions of people vaccinated since the drugs were authorized for the general public.