Counseling against the Covid-19 vaccine leaves some people with limbic allergies

After receiving the vaccine, two Alaska health workers also experienced allergic reactions, which required hospitalization. In contrast to the UK regulator, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Health Canada have only advised against administering the shot to people with a known history of severe allergic reaction to any component of the same vaccine.

Some patients in the United States and the United Kingdom said they were baffled and did not know what advice to follow.

“I’m definitely worried about that,” said Abigail Espinoza, a 43-year-old mother of 43 and an architecture design student in Astoria, Oregon, who said the UK incidents worried her. He has severe allergies to pistachios and penicillin, which can cause respiratory problems. To treat possible allergic reactions, carry an epinephrine autoinjector.

Ms. Espinoza, who is not from the first group of people vaccinated, said she does not plan to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine until more data and research is available on the vaccine and people with allergies. You also want to consult an allergist before receiving a shot.

Doctors say they are asking a lot of questions from patients with various types of allergies, who say they don’t know what to do once they are eligible.

Doctors fear that cases of severe reactions and conflicting advice on allergies will deter patients from getting vaccinated, as the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is developed, with Moderna Inc

The Covid-19 vaccine is likely to arrive soon.

Niraj Patel, an allergist and president of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology Covid-19 Task Force, said he has received many questions about whether people with allergies are more likely to have a severe reaction to the vaccine. “They want to know if it’s safe to receive,” he said.

Dr. Patel and other allergy experts in the United States have explained to concerned patients that only people with a history of severe allergic reactions to a specific component of the vaccine (particularly a compound called polyethylene glycol) should not receive it. the vaccine. Otherwise, having a severe allergy to food or medication orally does not increase the chances of an allergic reaction to the vaccine, he said.

Allergists find that some people may have allergies related to each other. For example, people allergic to one type of nut may also be allergic to other types of nuts because they contain similar chemical structures, which is known as cross-reactivity, Dr. Patel said.

“There does not appear to be any cross-reactivity between the agents found in the Covid vaccine and other common proteins that cause anaphylaxis, such as food or drugs,” he said. Anaphylaxis is the most severe form of allergic reaction, which can lead to airway closure and death.

Prior to the UK’s launch of the Pfizer vaccine on 8 December, the country’s advice was in line with its guidelines for all vaccines and reflected the recommendations of Pfizer and BioNTech for its release: those with al- allergy to the vaccine or its components should not be taken.

Chris Whitty, chief physician of England, said the UK modified its advice based on real-world reactions that had not happened in clinical trials. This has led to an improvement over time in the number of cases of anaphylaxis after injections, Whitty said Wednesday.

Sometimes the ingredient that caused the reaction, the allergen, is not known, the UK Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Agency said. “Therefore, as a precautionary measure, our current advice is that anyone with a history of immediate-onset anaphylaxis to a vaccine, medication, or food should not receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine,” a spokeswoman for the MHRA. “The investigation of these cases continues,” he added.

Professor Saad Shakir, director of the UK Pharmacological Safety Research Unit, said the decision to extend restrictions on vaccine recipients was “the right action to minimize risk”.

“It is reassuring that the decision has been made and communicated so quickly,” he said.

According to the ACAAI, anaphylaxis after vaccinations usually occurs once per million doses. People who have had severe allergic reactions, such as anaphylaxis, to any component of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine should not receive the vaccine, according to the FDA and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The components of the vaccine can be found on the FDA website.

People with severe allergies to any other vaccine or injection may receive the vaccine, but should talk to their healthcare providers in advance about the weighting of the risks of an allergic reaction and the benefits of receiving the vaccine, he said. the agency. And there’s no reason why people with a history of mild or severe allergic reactions to food, pets, oral medications or environmental allergens like pollen shouldn’t get the vaccine, according to the CDC.

The CDC also says all vaccine recipients should be observed for 15 minutes after vaccination to control for possible adverse reactions. People with a history of anaphylaxis should be observed for 30 minutes after vaccination.

Pfizer and BioNTech have said that people with severe allergic reactions to the vaccine or its components should not receive the vaccine. According to the companies, clinical trials of the vaccine did not include people with this profile.

Anaphylaxis was not observed during clinical trials of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, although 0.63% of a subset of vaccinated participants in later-stage trials had so-called hypersensitivity-related adverse events. they could have been allergic reactions. In the placebo group, 0.51% had these reactions.

Modern said there had been an anaphylactic reaction in a vaccine receptor in her study, but it occurred two months after the second dose in a person with a history of asthma and seafood allergy. Allergists say that anaphylactic reactions are unlikely to occur so late; most reactions would occur within minutes. The company said it plans to continue overseeing these events.

Some allergy and vaccine experts in the United States said they disagreed with the UK’s decision to ban vaccination of all people with severe allergies to food, medicine or vaccines. They said this policy is too broad, as there were only two cases of severe allergic reactions in the UK of 138,000 doses administered in the first week.

“He’s talking about eliminating tens of millions of people” from the vaccination program if a ban on injecting people with severe food or drug allergies is banned, ”said Paul Offit, a vaccination expert at Philadelphia Children’s Hospital. FDA Covid-19 Vaccine Advisory Board The FDA said it was investigating the two allergic reactions in Alaska.

People with allergies need to understand that they usually have the same risk of having an allergic reaction to the vaccine as anyone else, he said. “We need to comfort people that this is not going to be a problem for them,” Dr. Offit said.

Write to Sarah Toy at [email protected] and Joanna Sugden at [email protected]