People with severe allergies are being warned by health officials about possible complications with the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine.
This came up after two people who received the vaccine in the UK on Tuesday 8th December, 2020 experienced severe side effects.
“It turned out that two, what turned out to be health care workers, experienced anaphylactoid reactions where they had a significant allergic reaction after being vaccinated,” said Dr. Murtaza Akhter.
While it’s unclear what exactly caused the reaction, Dr. Akhter is warning that there is not enough information to guarantee the safety of this vaccine for individuals with severe allergies.
“Now, remember in the trials, people with severe allergies were excluded, so they weren’t studied anyway,” said Dr. Akhter.
Arizona is expected to receive 383,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine by the end of the month.
The first doses will go to frontline health care workers and long term care facilities. He says it’s those in the first group that experts across the board should be paying close attention to.
“I would treat this in terms of the level of scrutiny and watchfulness as if these people were in a trial, for these first rounds of people I would hope people are actually monitoring them,” said Dr. Akhter.
The state says they will be throughout the process. Dr. Akhter says everyone with underlying conditions should consult their primary care doctor prior to getting the vaccine. But he adds it should be safe for the vast majority of the population.
