Jakarta –
“We don’t know the long-term side effects of the Covid vaccine.” This is a claim that is still commonly shared online.
One year is actually considered “long term” in terms of vaccine safety.
This week marks one year since the first delivery of the Covid-19 vaccine under the Covax scheme, as well as more than 14 months since the first dose was administered.
Scientists explain that time period is more than enough to know the emergence of side effects.
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What happened to your body?
Although the Covid vaccine is relatively new, the process it triggers in the human body has long been known.
Understanding how vaccines stimulate the immune system can help us understand how quickly we can expect a negative reaction.
After 15 minutes
A small percentage of people will have an allergic reaction to the inactive ingredients in the vaccine. The reaction can occur within about 15 minutes of receiving it.
While in others, side effects are the body’s reaction to the vaccine itself or to antibodies produced by your body.
After a few hours
The innate phase, where your body reacts to the vaccine itself, begins immediately.
Your body recognizes a ‘foreign invader’ and attacks it with immune cells, weapons it will use against any virus or bacteria.
Any reactions associated with this phase will occur within hours or days, including the most common side effects, such as sore arms, high body temperature, and other mild flu-like symptoms.
A much less common side effect associated with Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines is myocarditis or inflammation of the heart. These side effects also occur in this phase.
Although the exact cause of myocarditis is not fully understood, inflammation is known to be one of the body’s responses to infection or injury.
Vaccine-induced myocarditis is generally mild and improves on its own or with basic anti-inflammatory medications such as ibuprofen.
After 10 days
The second phase of your immune response begins to emerge. This is the adaptive phase, where your body begins to make cells specifically designed to fight off the virus it has targeted.
This phase starts after about 10 days, which is why it takes the same amount of time for the vaccine to start having an effect to protect you from Covid. Your body produces new immune cells, then the response peaks after about two weeks and disappears after about 28 days.
A very rare, but serious, side effect associated with the AstraZeneca vaccine is certain types of blood clotting. These side effects are related to the antibodies produced by the immune system in response to the vaccine. That is why, most rare blood clots are seen within four weeks of vaccination.
28th day
After the adaptive phase ends, about a month, you have memory cells that provide you with protection for months or years after the initial exposure. However, Dr Victoria Male, a reproductive immunologist in London explains you have no new response.
So, he says, if you don’t have a reaction after the first few months, it’s very unlikely that anything that happened after that was caused by the vaccine.
However, there is never a 100% guarantee of anything in the medical world. So, we can’t say it’s impossible that something will happen after that period of time.
However, throughout history, scientists have not found any new side effects that appear more than six months later.
“The vaccination history assures us that most side effects occur within hours of receiving the vaccine and that side effects are rare, occurring within days to weeks,” said Prof Jeffrey Mphahlele, South Africa’s leading infectious disease researcher.
Mobile vaccination in Cape Town makes it easier for people to get the Covid-19 vaccine. (Getty Images)
Are we going to discover anything new?
From our understanding of how the immune system works, gathered over the centuries, someone who doesn’t react to a vaccine in the first few months is much less likely to experience new side effects after that.
However, could the side effects that have occurred go unnoticed, and might be revealed in the years to come?
Countries around the world have implemented systems to monitor side effects and share information about them with each other.
This system successfully uncovers the blood clots and myocarditis that we have already mentioned. Although these side effects are extremely rare as they are only a handful of cases out of millions of doses.
While milder symptoms, such as a sore arm or a high body temperature, are more likely to be significantly underreported. Dr. Male assured that the more severe side effects were recorded thoroughly.
There are also other major studies on vaccine safety that don’t rely on individual reports, such as the US Vaccine Safety Data Link.
Dr Chandrakant Lahariya, an epidemiologist in Delhi, advises paying attention to how many doses have been given rather than just sticking to how much time has elapsed after receiving the vaccine. Because, they expect side effects to appear relatively quickly.
“Billions of doses have been administered, so any side effect that hasn’t been seen will be much less common than one case in a billion doses,” he said.
However, medical systems around the world are still looking for side effects, says Dr Lahariya.
Meanwhile, all vaccines have gone through three phases of trials which are usually carried out before the vaccine is given to the general public. The vaccines are still being closely monitored until at least 2023, to ensure even the rarest of events.
And remember, safety in medication is about balancing the risks and benefits.
All the evidence suggests the overall risk of contracting Covid is much higher than any risk from the vaccine.
(ita / ita)
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