U.K. Regulator Warns People With ‘Significant’ Allergies To Avoid Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine

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TOPLINE

One day after the U.K was hailed for administering the first coronavirus vaccine shots in the west, Britain’s medicines regulator has warned people with a history of “significant” allergies to avoid the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine after two people who had the shot Tuesday experienced allergic reactions. 

KEY FACTS

Two National Health Service (NHS) staff members experienced anaphylactoid reactions after receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on the first day of the U.K.’s vaccination campaign.

Both are reported to be recovering well and had a history of severe allergic reactions, the NHS confirmed to news outlets.

As a precaution, the British medicines regulator, the MHRA, has advised people with a history of “significant allergic reaction to a vaccine, medicine or food” to avoid the vaccine and for vaccination centers to have resuscitation facilities on hand. 

Professor Stephen Powis, national medical director for the NHS in England, said such precautionary advice is “common with new vaccines.” 

CRITICAL QUOTE

Professor Stephen Evans, a professor of pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said that such reactions are “not unexpected,” saying that allergic reactions occur with a number of vaccines and drugs. “For the general population this does not mean that they would need to be anxious about receiving the vaccination,” Evans added. Professor Peter Openshaw, a professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London, echoed this advice, emphasizing the need to “put this risk in perspective.”

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