Kosin Med J.  2022 Mar;37(1):18-26. 10.7180/kmj.22.017.

Adverse events following vaccination against coronavirus disease 2019

Affiliations
  • 1Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine, Kosin University Gospel Hospital, Kosin University College of Medicine, Busan, Korea
  • 2Department of Infectious Diseases, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea

Abstract

To overcome the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, large-scale vaccination is proceeding worldwide. As of December 23, 2021, 10 novel vaccines against COVID-19 had been validated for use by the World Health Organization (WHO), including BNT162b2 (Pfizer/BioNTech), mRNA-1273 (Moderna), AZD1222 (AstraZeneca), and Ad26.COV2.S (Janssen). These novel vaccines against COVID-19 showed acceptable safety profiles in randomized clinical trials. Most adverse events following immunization (AEFIs) associated with these novel vaccines ranged from mild to moderate and improved within a few days after administration. However, serious adverse events associated with vaccines that were not observed in the clinical trials were reported in real-world data. Adverse events of special interest include not only anaphylaxis or neurologic disorders (such as Guillain-Barré syndrome, transverse myelitis, or seizure) but also myocarditis or pericarditis associated with the messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines and thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome associated with the adenovirus-vector vaccines. Although several fatal cases of serious AEFIs that may have been related to vaccination have been reported, it is recommended to continue vaccination because the benefits of vaccines’ preventive effects against COVID-19 outweigh the risks of rare serious adverse events. Long-term monitoring of various AEFIs and sharing of clinical experiences are necessary for safe and efficient large-scale vaccination.

Keyword

Adverse drug events; COVID-19; Vaccination

Reference

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