[ 2021-03-03 ]

Covid vaccines show few serious side-effects after millions of jabs

Please use the sharing tools found via the share
button at the top or side of articles. Copying
articles to share with others is a breach of
FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email
licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights.
Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per
month using the gift article service. More
information can be found at
https://www.ft.com/tour.
https://www.ft.com/content/68a26565-6de1-44db-8569-50b64b20385a?segmentId=b0d7e653-3467-12ab-c0f0-77e4424cdb4c

Despite concerns about possible side-effects as
Covid-19 vaccines are rolled out around the world,
evidence from the UK’s well-advanced vaccination
programme suggests recipients of the leading jabs
have little to fear.

The UK Medicines and Healthcare products
Regulatory Agency (MHRA) operates a Yellow Card
surveillance scheme, which enables health
professionals and members of the public to report
suspected adverse events following vaccination.

By February 14, the UK had administered 8.3m first
doses of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine resulting in
26,823 cards and 6.9m first doses of the
Oxford/AstraZeneca jab generating 31,427 cards.

For both vaccines, the “overwhelming majority”
of adverse events were felt shortly after the
injection and were not associated with “more
serious or lasting illness”, the MHRA said.
Those side effects included sore arms and
generalised symptoms such as “flu-like”
illness, headache, chills, fatigue, nausea, fever,
dizziness, weakness, aching muscles, and rapid
heartbeat, it said.

Severe allergic reactions — so-called
anaphylaxis — were reported 168 times for the
Pfizer vaccine and 105 times for the AstraZeneca
product.

Overall, the data showed a slightly higher rate of
adverse reaction for AstraZeneca’s adenovirus
vaccine, about 0.45 per cent, than for Pfizer’s
mRNA jab, approximately 0.3 per cent. But Dr June
Raine, MHRA chief executive, warned against
drawing conclusions from the Yellow Card reports
about the relative safety of the shots.


Please use the sharing tools found via the share
button at the top or side of articles. Copying
articles to share with others is a breach of
FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email
licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights.
Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per
month using the gift article service. More
information can be found at
https://www.ft.com/tour.
https://www.ft.com/content/68a26565-6de1-44db-8569-50b64b20385a?segmentId=b0d7e653-3467-12ab-c0f0-77e4424cdb4c

“There are a range of factors that can lead to
increased reporting of one vaccine over another
— for instance socio-demographic factors of
vaccine recipients or whether or not they have
been encouraged by information, or a healthcare
professional, to make a report,” she said.

The two vaccines have been used in different
settings and the age distribution of people
receiving the shots has differed too. During the
first four weeks of the UK vaccination programme,
when the oldest age group was targeted, only the
Pfizer jab was available.

In general, younger adults tend to suffer more
side-effects from vaccination than the elderly
because their immune system responds more strongly
to the vaccine.

Brendan Wren, a professor of vaccinology at the
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said
he would not expect the AstraZeneca vaccine to
produce more side-effects than the Pfizer shot in
the same population.

“I can’t think of any scientific reason to
suppose that using an adenovirus vector is any
more likely to cause an adverse reaction than mRNA
in a lipid nanoparticle, but lipid particles can
occasionally have allergic complications,” he
said.

Professor Beate Kampmann, director of The Vaccine
Centre at the LSHTM, said: “There is nothing to
be gained by digging for any subtle differences
between the two products, as overall they are
performing the same, and it’s great to see all
of the granularity for this information to be
publicly available.”


Please use the sharing tools found via the share
button at the top or side of articles. Copying
articles to share with others is a breach of
FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email
licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights.
Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per
month using the gift article service. More
information can be found at
https://www.ft.com/tour.
https://www.ft.com/content/68a26565-6de1-44db-8569-50b64b20385a?segmentId=b0d7e653-3467-12ab-c0f0-77e4424cdb4c

One pattern reported during the UK’s
vaccination rollout has been a sudden feeling of
cold starting within a day of the injection
followed by a fever, often with sweating,
headache, nausea and muscle aches. These effects
often last for a day or two, like the flu-like
illness reported during the vaccine’s clinical
trials.

No deaths have been attributed directly to
Covid-19 vaccination in the UK or elsewhere,
though proving such a link would be extremely
hard. Mortality statistics show that several
thousand people would be expected to die of other
causes within a week of the millions of jabs
administered so far, according to the MHRA.

The MHRA has received about 400 reports of deaths
shortly after vaccination, split evenly between
the two vaccines. “Review of individual reports
and patterns of reporting does not suggest the
vaccine played a role in the death,” it said.

Source - FT, UK

... go Back