Photographer: Eva Marie Uzcategui / Bloomberg
Photographer: Eva Marie Uzcategui / Bloomberg
Like all new drugs, the Covid-19 vaccines that have been authorized in Western countries have some safety concerns and side effects. Many people found the first two pictures used, one from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE and another from Moderna Inc., has experienced fever, headache and pain at the injection site. These side effects usually disappear quickly. As many as 10 people have had a severe allergic reaction, called anaphylaxis, to the vaccines.
1. What is anaphylaxis?
The body fights foreign invaders through a variety of methods that involve the production of protective proteins called antibodies, releasing toxins that kill microbes, and managing cells defenders to fight the disease. As with any conflict, the attempt to reverse a disease can sometimes be harmful. In rare cases, it can remove inflammation and swellings in a severe sensory reaction called anaphylaxis. As much as 5% of people in the US have received such a response on various products. It can be fatal if, for example, the person’s airway is closed, even though there are fatalities rare. Allergies to rays and foods can stimulate insects, although drug reactions are the most common cause of anaphylaxis deaths in the US and UK
2. Where did Covid vaccines cause issues?
A 19 December a presentation from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported two cases of anaphylaxis associated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in the UK and six in the U.S. A health care worker in Alaska had to got shot to hospital overnight. Later this month, in Israel, which uses the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, a man suffered an anaphylactic shock an hour after receiving a shot, according to the Jerusalem Post. He said he had received earlier comments on penicillin, the paper said. And a doctor in Boston said a shellfish allergy anaphylactic response to Moderna vaccine. None of the comments died.
3. Has anaphylaxis been linked to previous vaccines?
There is. A 2016 a study in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology found 33 confirmed cases of vaccine-induced anaphylaxis that occurred after 25,173,965 doses of inoculations, a rate of approximately 1.31 per million doses. So far, the level of known cases related to administration is around 3 million doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines appear to be more than double that, but still very low.
4. How long does the threat last?
Usually not long. Anaphylactic reactions usually occur within minutes to hours of exposure to a particular substance, said Michael Kinch, a drug development expert and associate vice chancellor at Washington University in St. Louis. Of the 29 cases where the time delay was recorded in the 2016 study, symptoms of anaphylaxis started within 30 minutes in eight cases, within the next 90 minutes in another eight, within two or three minutes. four hours in 10 cases, within four to eight hours in two cases, and the next day in one.
5. What is being done about the danger?
The UK and the U.S. has advised people with allergies to any part of the Covid vaccine not to get it. Anaphylaxis can be quickly counteracted with antihistamines and adrenaline injections such as Epi-Pen at Mylan NV that slow down or stop immune reactions, and donating health workers vaccines keep such things ready. These treatments do not eliminate the beneficial effects of vaccines. In the U.S., health workers monitor anyone who received the vaccine for at least 15 minutes after the injection to monitor for symptoms of recurrence. People who have received comments on the first dose of the vaccine should not receive a second, according to the CDC.
6. Do we know what in the scenes is causing the reactions?
That is not clear. The two main candidates are polyethylene glycol – a chemical found in many foods, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals – and lipid nanoparticles that contain the messenger’s RNA, a genetic component in the vaccines, according to Eric Topol, clinical trials expert and director of the Scripps Research Translation Institute. Polyethylene glycol has been previously associated with a handful of cases of anaphylaxis. Once a cause is reduced, it may be possible to make Covid vaccines even safer than they are now, Topol said. If other non-allergic side effects develop, he said, “they also tend to be very rare and the net benefit of the vaccine is very promising.”