Israel Researches Cases Of Heart Inflammation In Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Recipients

Ilustrasi vaksin COVID-19. (Wikimedia Commons / Ministry of Defense of Peru)

JAKARTA - Israel's Ministry of Health is examining a small number of cases of heart inflammation in people who have received Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine, although it has not drawn any conclusions.

Israel's pandemic response coordinator Nachman Ash said preliminary studies showed dozens of myocarditis incidents occurred among the more than 5 million people vaccinated, especially after the second dose.

Ash said that it was unclear if this was very high and if it was related to vaccines. Most of the reported cases occur in people up to the age of 30.

"The Ministry of Health is currently examining whether there is excess morbidity (disease rate) and whether it can be linked to vaccines", Ash told Reuters, Monday, April 26.

Ash called this condition a "question mark" and stressed that the Israeli Ministry of Health had not drawn any conclusions.

Determining the link, he said, would be difficult because myocarditis, a condition that often clears up without complications, can be caused by various viruses and similar cases were reported in previous years.

Pfizer, which asked by Reuters about the review, said it regularly contacts Israel's Health Ministry to review data on its vaccines.

The company said it is aware of Israel's observations of myocarditis occurring, especially in the young male population who received the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

"Adverse events are regularly and thoroughly reviewed and we have not observed higher rates of myocarditis than would be expected in the general population. A causal relationship with vaccines has not been established", the company said in a statement.

"There is no evidence at present to conclude that myocarditis is a risk associated with using the Pfizer/BNT COVID-19 vaccine", the statement continued.

Separate director of the School of Public Health at Israel's Ben Gurion University, Nadav Davidovitch said, although there is a correlation between cases of myocarditis and vaccines, it does not appear serious enough to stop vaccines.

"This is a situation to be aware of, and we need to wait for the final report. However, in the interim analysis, it appears that the risk of illness from COVID-19 is much higher than from vaccine side effects, and the risk of peri-myocarditis after vaccination is low and temporary", he explained

To note, Israel has become one of the countries that excels in administering the COVID-19 vaccine, where nearly 60 percent of its 9.3 million population have received the Pfizer vaccine. Its national database has shown the vaccine is highly effective in preventing the severe symptoms and illnesses associated with COVID-19.

Since January, shortly after the vaccine campaign began, daily cases of COVID-19 infection in Israel have fallen dramatically, from starting at around 10.000 to just over 129.