It is January 2021, and now in the midst of this pandemic, and now with the advent of two new vaccines, so-called messenger RNA vaccines to prevent SARS-CoV-2, people ask the reasonable question: Since this is a new strategy, a new way to make a vaccine, what are the long-term effects? How are we going to know about the long-term effects?
Well, vaccines like any medical product that have a positive effect can have a negative effect,and that's true here too. So for example, vaccines like the oral polio vaccine was a rare cause of polio; it occurred in maybe 1 per 2.4 million people, but it was real. Yellow fever vaccine was a rare cause of something that had the fancy name viscerotropic disease, which is really basically a form of yellow fever;again, occurred in about 1 in a million people; it was rare, but it was real. There was a squalene adjuvanted influenza vaccine that was used in Europe that was also a very rare cause of something called narcolepsy, which is a permanent disorder of wakefulness. And, measles-containing vaccine can cause a lowering of the platelet count, which can cause these sort of like broken blood vessels called petechiae; again, occurred in maybe 1 in 30,000 people -- rare but real.The good news about these terrible side effects is that they all occur within six weeks of a dose. That's why it is that the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, insisted that each of these vaccines be studied for at least two months after the last dose, knowing that there's not been a serious side effect in history that hasn't occurred within weeks of getting the dose, within six weeks of getting the dose.
So, although some of those effects are long term like polio or narcolepsy, they're still picked up within six weeks. So I think in those preapproval studies where the vaccines have been tested in tens of thousands of people, you could say with confidence that there wasn't at least a relatively uncommon, serious side effect. And now that the vaccine has been given to more than 10 million people, I think you can say with some confidence that there doesn't appear to be right now a very rare, serious side effect that would be something that would cause a long-term problem. But again, we need to be humble, keep our eyes open and look what happens as we vaccinate hundreds and hundreds of millions of people to make sure that there's not an additional problem. But usually when those problems occur, they occur within six weeks of a dose.
Vaccines are turning the tide but they're not without risks especially for women they've been rare cases of blood clotting even fatal ones leading some governments to slow down vaccinations.we have now today chosen to continue our vaccine rollout without estracinica but each delay puts more lives at risk as the coronavirus spreads it's a balancing act between speed and caution in the fight against covert 19.The risk of dying from covert is much higher than getting a blood clot from a vaccine but even more concerning is a new report from oxford university that shows catching the coronavirus puts you at even more risk of a deadly blood clot in a moment we'll talk to a vaccine scientist at johns hopkins university
first this report astrazeneca's covid19 vector vaccine has hardly been out of the headline since last december until now it's been instrumental in the success of the uk's vaccination program but from now on its use there will be restricted to those over 30 years of age there have been worries in the european union about its effectiveness and potential side effects germany initially restricted its use to under 65s now berlin is recommending it purely for over 60s those worries were compounded by several cases of a rare thrombosis types following astrazeneca vaccinations some of them fatal the european medicines agency in amsterdam felt it was time to take a stance on the jab it's director stressing that the benefits of the anti-viral agent far outweigh any risks this vaccine has proven to be highly effective it prevents severe disease and hospitalization and it is saving lives vaccination is extremely important in helping us in the fight against covet 19 and we need to use the vaccines we have
to protect us from the devastating effects
of vaccine.
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