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People with certain underlying conditions can receive a COVID-19 vaccine as long as they haven’t had a severe allergic reaction to any of the vaccine’s ingredients, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in guidelines recently published.
“Adults of any age with certain underlying medical conditions are at increased risk of serious illness from the virus that causes COVID-19,” the agency noted in recommendations released Saturday.
As of Wednesday, 338,656 people have died from COVID-19 in the United States and 19.5 million people have been infected, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University. Worldwide, 1,792,786 have died from the virus and more than 82 million people have tested positive; this ignores, for the most part, those who are asymptomatic.
People with weakened immune systems, including some people living with HIV, may be at increased risk of severe cases of COVID-19 and may receive a vaccine, the CDC said.
But they should take note of the limitations of vaccine safety data, the agency added, which is not yet available for these groups. While clinical trials have included people with HIV, specific safety information for this population is not yet available.
People living with autoimmune diseases can get a coronavirus mRNA vaccine, according to the CDC, but they should also note that there is no safety data available.
Those who have had Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), a rare but potentially serious autoimmune disease, can also get the vaccine. “With few exceptions, the general best practice guidelines of the Independent Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) for immunization do not include a history of GBS as a precautionary measure for vaccination with other vaccines. », Indicates the agency.
People who have had Bell’s palsy, a usually temporary weakness or paralysis of the face, can also be vaccinated. While COVID-19 vaccine trials included a few reports of Bell’s palsy, the Food and Drug Administration “does not consider these to be greater than the expected rate in the general population” and did not conclude that the vaccination was behind these cases, according to the CDC. .
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People who get vaccinated against COVID-19 should always follow current mitigation measures such as masking, social distancing, and good hand hygiene until experts gain a better understanding of how vaccines protect people. people in real life, according to the CDC.
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The new guidelines came weeks after the FDA granted emergency use clearance, a less stringent clearance than the full FDA approval that is used to speed up the use of COVID-19 treatments and vaccines. , to Pfizer PFE vaccine candidates,
-BioNTech BNTX,
and Moderna MRNA,
Both vaccines require two doses and use mRNA technology, which teaches cells in the body to create proteins that generate an immune response.
The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccine fact sheets include a complete list of their ingredients.
As of Monday morning, 2.1 million people in the United States had received their first doses of the vaccine and 11.4 million doses had been distributed, according to a CDC tally.
Public health authorities have recommended that health workers and residents of long-term care facilities be the first to be vaccinated. This is followed by essential frontline workers and adults aged 75 and over, followed by adults aged 65-74, people aged 16-64 with high-risk health conditions and essential workers not previously included. , as recommended by the CDC.
The average person in the United States who does not fall into any high priority category will likely be able to get the vaccine in the spring or summer, experts say.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has been shown to be 95% effective in clinical trials, while Moderna’s vaccine was approximately 94% effective. But people who get vaccinated against COVID-19 have yet to practice current mitigation measures such as masking, social distancing and good hand hygiene until experts better understand how much vaccines protect people in real life, according to the CDC.
As vaccine news sheds some light on what has been a bleak year for millions of people, the United States has recorded an average of 183,140 daily cases of COVID-19 over the past week, according to a New York Times tracker; at least 1,899 people died of the disease on Monday. The number of current hospitalizations reached a record 121,235 on Monday, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
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