Shingles could be new but rare side effect of Covid vaccine, docs discover
SHINGLES could be a new but rare side effect of the coronavirus vaccine, doctors have discovered.
Experts in Israel found that patients with certain autoimmune diseases who received the Pfizer/BioNTech jab were more likely to develop the rash than those without the condition.
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Side effects can occur with any medication, including vaccines.
They are always listed on the product information leaflet which comes with the medication.
Most people who have a Covid jab won’t suffer any side effects but for those who have experienced them, the most common include pain at the site of injection and fatigue.
Medics at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center and Carmel Medical Center in Haifa found that shingles was five times more common after the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine.
The experts said the study “should not scare people” but that it needed to be published so that doctors were aware of the possible side effect.
Dr Victoria Furer, a rheumatologist at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, said that they cannot say for sure that the vaccine is the cause of the shingles, a skin rash also known has herpes zoster.
Speaking to The Jerusalem Post, she said: “We can say it might be a trigger in some patients.”
She added that five out of the six patients who had developed shingles after the vaccine had an autoimmune disease.
Dr Furer said: “That is why we reported on it. It seems that the reason is that there is some association.
“We should not scare people. The overall message is to get vaccinated. It is just important to be aware.”
What is shingles?
SHINGLES is an infection that causes a painful rash and blotchy patches on the skin.
The condition is serious enough to merit seeing your GP — so what are the symptoms to look out for?
Shingles is caused by an infection that re-triggers the varicella zoster virus (VZV).
VZV firsts infects the body when you get chickenpox, and the virus can remain inactive in nerve cells to reappear as shingles.
It is not fully understood what can trigger shingles, but old age, a poor immune system and having had chickenpox before 18-months are risk factors.
What are the symptoms?
The most common first signs of shingles are tingling or pains in patches of the skin along with headaches.
A rash can then appear, usually on the chest or stomach — but it can also appear on the face, eyes and genitals, according to the NHS website.
The shingles rash appears as red blotches on your skin, on one side of your body only. A rash on both the left and right of your body is unlikely to be shingles.
The blotches become itchy blisters which ooze fluid. A few days later the blisters dry out and scab.
The rash can form a band that only appears on one side of your body. The skin remains painful until after the rash has gone.
You should speak to a GP as soon as you suspect you have shingles.
Medication can speed up the recovery.
Some autoimmune diseases, autoimmune inflammatory rheumatic diseases (AIIRD), can cause the immune system to attack certain parts of a person’s body including the organs.
People with AIIRD include those suffering from conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis.
Many people with this condition will suffer swelling and joint numbness.
Millions of people across the UK have received a first and second dose of the Pfizer jab and the Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), have not released any information to suggest patients have come down with shingles.
In total, 33 million Brits have received a first dose of either Pfizer, Oxford/AstraZeneca or Moderna jab, with more than 10.4 million having had a second.
Published in the journal Rheumatology, the team looked at 590 patients who received the Pfizer jab.
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In the group, 491 of the patients had a form of AIIRD.
The study found that 1.2 per cent of the patients with AIIRD developed shingles - this is just six patients.
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Five patients contracted shingles after the first dose, and one after the second.
The researchers added that a larger study would need to be conducted in order to garner better results.