Spinal cord damage in humans. Could coronvirus vaccine cause spinal cord damage after a vaccine testing participant suffered a brain and spinal cord damage. Image credit: freepik.com

Health Education

Could coronavirus vaccine cause spinal cord damage?

A participant undergoing vaccine tests suffered spinal cord damage and was hospitalized

Further tests using samples from other vaccinated patients to confirm the effects on the brain or spinal cord tissue might take 1 or 2 months.

Neurologists have cautioned AstraZeneca over hiding a potential complication of a vaccine which will eventually be administered to millions of people

National Institutes of Health Britain has launched an investigation of the case where a coronavirus vaccine testing was halted when a participant suffered spinal cord damage, according to the information from an international news media.

Dr. Avindra Nath, intramural clinical director and a leader of viral research at the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke, an NIH division, in expressing his concern, said that everyone’s hopes are on a vaccine, and if you have a major complication the whole trial process could get disrupted.

A great deal of uncertainty remains about what happened to the unnamed patient which those enthusiastically following the progress of vaccine testing frustrated and was hospitalized.

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AstraZeneca, which is running a global testing of the vaccine in partnership with Oxford University, said the trial volunteer recovered from a severe inflammation of the spinal cord.

AstraZeneca has not confirmed that the patient was afflicted with transverse myelitis, but Dr. Nath  Avindra and another neurologist said they understood this to be the case and cautioned  AstraZeneca over hiding a potential complication of a vaccine which will eventually be administered to millions of people.

Carrying further tests using samples from other vaccinated patients could determine any of the antibodies they generated in response to the coronavirus also attack the brain or spinal cord tissue such tests might take a month or two.

Dr. Jesse Goodman, a Georgetown University professor and physician and former chief scientist and lead vaccine regulator at the FDA during the Obama administration, said that the US Food and Drug Administration agency will review the data and possibly consult with British regulators and if the injury in the British trial was caused by the vaccine, the FDA could pause the trial.

Dr. Elliot Frohman, director of the Multiple Sclerosis & Neuroimmunology Center at the University of Texas confirmed that a volunteer in an earlier phase of the AstraZeneca trial experienced a similar side effect, multiple sclerosis that was unrelated to the vaccination.

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