Rarely have vaccines been under more public scrutiny than they have been in recent months. Where the side effects of vaccines and drugs are usually only mentioned in the small print of the package insert, the side effects of the covid vaccines are now listed in chocolate letters above news items, such as above this very article.
This time, the Pfizer vaccine is under scrutiny after the Health Ministry of vaccine champion Israel noted that a small number of young men developed inflammation of the heart muscle or pericardium after the second Pfizer shot.
Young men
Readers who are fluent in Hebrew can read the official announcement on the Israeli government website. For convenience, let’s summarize it:
In Israel, 275 cases of myocarditis, or heart muscle inflammation, have been diagnosed among just over 5 million people vaccinated against the coronavirus between December and May.
In 148 cases this happened during a period around the vaccination, in 121 cases it happened after the second vaccination. Among them mainly young men between the ages of 16 and 30. In most cases it was only a mild illness that healed after a few days.
Rare
“Inflammation like this is almost never serious”, confirms Steven Droogmans, heart specialist and department head of cardiology at UZ Brussel in ‘De Morgen’. Only in very rare cases does inflammation of the heart lead to dangerous cardiac arrhythmias or possibly heart failure, the professor reassures.
Myocarditis is very rare anyway: 5 to 10 patients per 100,000 inhabitants contract an inflammation of the heart muscle every year. It occurs most often in young patients, slightly more in men than in women. It is believed to be an overreaction of the immune system to infections.
Listen to the interpretation of cardiologist Steven Droogmans in ‘The Morning’ via Radio 1 Select
Source: vrtnws.be and ‘The Morning’
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