The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has confirmed that the first 22 million Americans were vaccinated at a January 27 meeting for COVID-19, marking a new milestone in the country’s turbulent explosion.
The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices presented data on vaccine safety earlier this week, noting that 23.5 million doses of COVID-19 have been administered in the country amid ‘the most intensive and comprehensive vaccine safety monitoring program in history’.
Additional safety data showed that the COVID-19 vaccines approved by the Food and Drug Administration mainly caused moderate side effects, such as injection site pain, fatigue, fever and headache within a week after vaccination.
“The safety profiles of COVID-19 vaccines are reassuring and consistent with those observed from pre-approved clinical trials,” the report said.
The committee’s researchers looked at a database designated as the vaccine safety database, and that there were no signs of serious adverse side effects, including seizures, heart attacks and other serious reactions among vaccine recipients included in the database. .
Anaphylaxis, or severe allergic reactions, have been reported early on as a possible side effect in patients with a history of allergies. Based on data from the CDC’s system for vaccination of side effects, 71 individuals had an allergic reaction following a vaccination.
This event was still rare, with five anaphylactic reactions administered per million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine, and only 2.8 allergic episodes per million doses of Moderna’s vaccine.
About 90 percent of the observed individuals reported allergic reactions within the first 30 minutes after being vaccinated.
The committee also looked at patient outcomes specifically for residents of long-term care facilities, one of the most dangerous environments for a COVID-19 outbreak. Among the 1.3 million COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in long-term care facilities, 11,440 deaths were reported over the same timeline between December 21 and January 18.
However, researchers emphasize that ‘mortality rate in LTCF [long-term care facility] residents are high and a significant number of deaths in this population will occur after vaccination as temporary concomitant adverse events, ‘meaning that there is no direct link between the deaths and a COVID-19 vaccination.
Overall findings indicate that COVID-19 vaccinations are safe to administer and that more data-centric measures are needed to monitor vaccinated populations.
President Biden’s goal is to get 100 million Americans vaccinated against COVID-19 within the first hundred days of his presidency, with an estimated deadline of April 29, 2021.
Novavax, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca have recently made recent progress in announcing successful clinical trials and approvals in selected regions. Pfizer and Moderna are also on track to produce millions of additional doses to deliver statements in Biden’s pursuit of more consistent implementation.