Two very rare Covid vaccine side-effects detected in global study of 99 million

Source: The Guardian

Two very rare Covid vaccine side-effects detected in global study of 99 million

Results confirm how uncommon known complications are as researchers confirm benefits from vaccines still ‘vastly outweigh the risks’

Natasha May
@natasha__may
Thu 22 Feb 2024 14.00 GMT
Last modified on Thu 22 Feb 2024 14.10 GMT

Two new but exceptionally rare Covid-19 vaccine side effects – a neurological disorder and inflammation of the spinal cord – have been detected by researchers in the largest vaccine safety study to date.

The study of more than 99 million people from Australia, Argentina, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, New Zealand and Scotland also confirmed how rare known vaccine complications are, with researchers confirming that the benefits of Covid-19 vaccines still “vastly outweigh the risks”.

Researchers working as part of the Global Vaccine Data Network used deidentified electronic healthcare data to compare the rates of 13 brain, blood and heart conditions in people after they received the Pfizer, Moderna or AstraZeneca vaccine with the rate that would be expected of those conditions in the population before the pandemic.

The study confirmed with a high level of accuracy known links between mRNA (Pfizer and Moderna) vaccines and the rare side-effects of myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) and pericarditis (swelling of the thin sac covering the heart). It also confirmed Guillain-Barré syndrome (where the immune system attacks the nerves) and cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (a type of blood clot in the brain) as rare side effects linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine.

But a new rare side-effect, acute disseminated encephalomyelitis ...

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/feb/23/two-very-rare-covid-vaccine-side-effects-detected-in-global-study-of-99-million