An employee at Wallowa Memorial Hospital this week had a severe allergic reaction to an initial dose of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine, health officials said Thursday.
The health worker has been admitted to the hospital and is still going on, according to a statement from the Oregon Health Authority. The agency did not say whether the person had a history of allergic reactions.
This is the first time that government officials have reported a case of an Oregonian who has had a severe allergic reaction to a coronavirus vaccine since vaccinations began in mid-December.
The case is also noteworthy because until recently it was only known that only Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines cause severe allergic reactions. The first known serious reaction to the Moderna vaccine took place on December 24, according to The New York Times.
Federal health officials say there is a “remote” chance that the Moderna vaccine will cause a serious allergic reaction, usually within an hour of someone getting the chance. Normal reactions to the vaccine include injection site pain, fatigue, nausea, and headache.
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According to a federal analysis of the Moderna vaccine, it appears that those who received a shot would no longer have a more severe reaction than those who did not. As the vaccine has been tested and approved on a dramatically faster timeline than normal, officials have indicated that future data may still look different.
“Observation is critical to detect rare serious side effects not identified in the clinical trial,” the Immunization Practices Advisory Committee said earlier this month.
The health authority has asked people who have had severe allergic reactions to other vaccines to talk to their doctors about whether it is safe for them to get a COVID-19 vaccine.
About 38,700 Oregonians received their first dose of Moderna or the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, 68 of which were in Wallowa County. Modern vaccines are responsible for 12,054 doses, the health authority said.
With 529 doses per 100,000 people administered, Oregon has one of the lowest COVID-19 vaccination rates in the country, according to data compiled by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
– Fedor Zarkhin; [email protected]; 503-294-7674