Low COVID-19 Vaccine Risks in Rheumatic Patients Save

Data from the European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatology Coronavirus Vaccine registry shows that patients with with inflammatory or noninflammatory rheumatic and musculoskeletal disease have similar adverse event rates as the general public.

Data from this registry was published in JAMA and include 5121 RMD patients from 30 countries; important as RMD patients were actively excluded from COVID-19 vaccine trials.  This population based study was based on voluntary postvaccination reports collected between February 2021 and July 2021.

While most (70%) patients had received the BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) vaccine, other vaccines were also represented - the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (Oxford/AstraZeneca) vaccine ( 17%), and the mRNA-1273 (Moderna) vaccine (8%).

Breakthrough infections were reported in nearly 1% after full vaccination.

Vaccine-associated adverse events were seen in 37% and included injection-site pain, fatigue, muscle pain, and fever. Only 1 in 200 patients experienced a severe adverse event.

RMD disease flares were seen in ~4% of patients, usually 6 days after their most recent vaccine dose; most were mild or moderate and only 1.5% of patients required a new med or drug change to manage the complaint.