by Megan Redshaw at The Defender
A recent study published in the journal Rheumatology found six women out of 491 patients who developed a skin rash known as herpes zoster (HZ) infection — or shingles — within three to 14 days of receiving either the first or second dose of the Pfizer’s COVID vaccine.
Researchers from Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center and Carmel Medical Center in Haifa also found the risk of developing HZ infection following a COVID vaccine increases among people with autoimmune inflammatory rheumatic diseases, Jerusalem Post reported.
Out of 491 patients, six people — or 1.2% — experienced the infection, researchers said. Five of them developed the shingles infection after the first dose and one after the second.
Shingles occurs when the varicella zoster virus, which causes chickenpox, is reactivated after lying dormant in the cranial and spinal nerves in the body. It then travels along affected nerves to the area of the skin served by those nerves, where it causes a distinctive, stripe-like rash on one side of the face or body.
Shingles is a painful and itchy condition consisting of blisters that scab over in seven to 10 days and take two to four weeks to fully resolve. The most common complication is postherpetic neuralgia — severe and debilitating nerve pain that can take months or years to clear up, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Lead researcher Dr. Victoria Furer said five of the six patients who developed HZ were young, had mild cases of autoimmune disease and were taking little if any medications for it — which means they should not have been at increased risk for developing the infection. HZ tends to develop more in people over the age of 50.
“That is why we reported on it,” Furer said.
Furer said that since her peer-reviewed article was published April 12, she has received emails from patients around the world who developed HZ after the vaccine. “It seems that the reason is that there is some association,” she told The Jerusalem Post.
“We cannot say the vaccine is the cause at this point,” Furer said. “We can say it might be a trigger in some patients.” She said further research, including a larger epidemiological study, would be needed to prove cause and effect.
U.S. experts dismissed vaccine-shingles link in February…
Continue Reading