At least 29 people in the United States have developed severe allergic reactions to Covid-19 vaccines, federal health authorities said Wednesday.
The rate is much higher than the seasonal flu vaccine, officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. But serious reactions were rare and did not cause any deaths, and encouraged the use of gunfire.
The 29 cases are as of Jan. 5 and are more than 5.3 million doses that have been administered so far, the CDC said.
The rate of 5.5 cases of anaphylaxis, a life-threatening allergic reaction, per million doses of Covid-19 vaccine administered to date, compares with the rate of 1.3 cases per million doses of flu vaccine, according to the CDC.
Still, cases of anaphylaxis are “extremely rare,” said Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Vaccination and Respiratory Diseases, which leads the agency’s Covid-19 vaccination efforts.