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If you received the COVID-19 vaccine and developed a swollen red broth at the injection site several days later, you may have received a “COVID arm”. This weird (but ultimately harmless) coronavirus vaccine side effect is something that researchers are now beginning to understand a little better.
Symptoms of the so-called “COVID arm” include redness, swelling, and tenderness at the injection site that developed eight days or more after vaccination, according to a new report in the New England Journal of Medicine. Looking at stage 3 clinical trial data for the Moderna mRNA vaccine, the researchers found that the reaction usually subsided after four to five days.
To put this into perspective, the researchers note that approximately 84% of people in the tests had a reaction, such as pain, shortly after the picture at the injection site. But only 0.8% of people (244 out of about 30,000) experienced these delayed skin reactions after their first dose. But the researchers note that the test data do not give a full picture of what these reactions might involve and that they do not differentiate between re-. comments after the first and second doses of the vaccine.
The researchers therefore examined 12 case reports of people who developed a delayed skin reaction after receiving the Moderna vaccine. Most people noted that their symptoms started on day eight or nine after receiving the first dose of the vaccine, but one person ‘s response appeared on day four and one developed it on day 11. Typically, these patients reported itchiness, redness, swelling, and pain. Interestingly, not all who developed this reaction after the first dose received one after the second: Of the 12 patients in this study, only half reported having a similar reaction after the second dose (three of those experienced milder reactions the second some time around).
Although researchers do not yet know exactly what causes this reaction, this pattern of symptoms and skin biopsy from another patient (who was not one of the other 12 in the study) gives some clues. for them. The biopsy suggests that the body’s T-cells, a type of immune cell that may limit the effects of an invading virus, may be behind these delayed hypersensitivity reactions.
Probably the biggest takeaway from these results is that not having one of these delayed reactions to the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine means you won’t get a second one. “We can now reassure you that it is safe to get a second #modernavaccine even if you delayed a large local #skin response at first glance,” said Esther E. Freeman, MD, Ph.D. D., director of global health dermatology at Massachusetts General Hospital Write, associate professor of dermatology at Harvard Medical School, and one of the study authors on Twitter.