So far, data collected on the COVID-19 vaccines indicate that most reactions to the shots are mild – including headaches, fever, fatigue and nausea. But with more than 38 million people in the U.S. now fully vaccinated, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention continues to gather information on how those who receive the vaccines respond and do so through a – as yet little known – app called V -safe.
The CDC describes V-safe as a “tool on smartphones that uses text messages and web recordings to conduct personal health examinations after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine.” The program asks you to report any side effects you experience after the vaccination, and depending on its severity, someone from the CDC may be asked to obtain more information. This week the app received criticism because it is only available on smartphones, excluding the millions of people in the US who do not have one.
But for the vast majority who do, says Dr. Carolyn B. Bridges, co-director of adult immunization at the Immunization Action Coalition, it can be an extremely useful resource. Here’s what you need to know.
Anyone who has been vaccinated can report to V-safe, and your vaccination center should have information about it.
Bridges says the distribution of vaccines should provide information on V-safe. “If you’re going to get your vaccine, you have to give it a handout with a QR code for it, which you can use to sign up,” she says. “They will send you questions about the kind of side effects you get during a period after your vaccination … and if you have something more unusual or more serious to report, you can follow it. – Call.” For those who does not receive a handout, the CDC provides instructions on the registration process on its website.
The information gathered on V-safe complements VAERS, the vaccine reporting system
The CDC has long tracked down serious vaccine responses through VAERS, the side effect vaccination system, which requires clinicians to record any clinical reactions. Bridges says that V-safe is not a substitute, but merely an additional way to detect side effects through self-reporting. “These vaccination trials were all large, about 40,000 people, but it might not pick up something that occurs in one in every million,” she says. “So while VAERS is going on, V-safe is complementary and involves you getting a text message to which you respond.”
As the U.S. vaccination program has moved at unprecedented speeds and outbreaks of multiple vaccines in less than a year, V-safe helps fill in the gaps, and Bridges says it may even make some people feel better about their choice of one. to get. “I think it’s important that people participate in V-safe if they want to contribute,” she says. “I think it would be important for people who at the beginning might not have been so comfortable with the vaccination, just to give them a little more control and more information.”
Nearly 4 million Americans have started reporting on it V-safe, which absorbs side effects such as headaches and fatigue
At a meeting on March 1, Dr Tom Shimabukuro, deputy director of the CDC’s Office of Immunization Security, shared the first data on V-safe and revealed that 3.8 million people started using the app by February 16. The number represents only a small fraction of the 55 million individuals who had received one or more doses of Pfizer or Moderna vaccines by that time (the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was not yet available), but its publicly available presentation shows valuable insight. obtained from data.
Like volunteers in the vaccination studies of Pfizer and Moderna, those who received the vaccinations reported three main symptoms after the shots: fatigue, headache, and myalgia (muscle aches). These side effects are followed by other common ailments including colds, nausea and fever. The reactions increased significantly after individuals received the second dose of Pfizer. (At that time, information for the second dose of Moderna was not available.)
More than 16,000 individuals reported being pregnant after their vaccination
Of all the myths that are spreading about the COVID-19 vaccine, the one that suggests that the vaccines can cause infertility in women is particularly harmful. But as of mid-January, the V-safe data, according to Shimabukuro slides, included 30,000 pregnant women, providing information that led the CDC to conclude that ‘adverse incidents among pregnant women in V-safe observed, indicates no safety issue. “
Bridges says this is one example of why V-safe is so valuable, especially since the clinical trials of Moderna and Pfizer do not include pregnant women. “All the pregnancies that have been recorded are incredibly helpful in having that data,” she says. “[There has been] wrong information and what we all want and need is real data – accurate information. So I think it’s a great way for people to be willing to volunteer. ‘
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