COVID-19 carries a much higher risk of causing heart inflammation than the disease vaccine developed by Pfizer, according to an Israel study published Wednesday.
Researchers in Tel Aviv estimate that three cases were recorded for every 100,000 people who were inoculated with the Pfizer vaccine. But the risk was 11 per 100,000 in people who contracted the virus.
The study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
It is the first study to assess the potential risks of vaccination “in the context of understanding the potential benefits of vaccination,” said Dr. Grace Lee, an infectious disease expert at Stanford University.
Previous reports have linked the COVID-19 vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna to cases of heart muscle inflammation. The problem was observed mainly in adolescent males and young adults, who developed chest pain a few days after being vaccinated.
Health authorities in the United States said that, in total, they have confirmed about 800 vaccine-related cases of two types of inflammation, in the heart muscle and in the tissue that lines the heart.
Researchers at the Clalit Institute examined hundreds of thousands of vaccinated and unvaccinated people. Separately, they tested unvaccinated people who had contracted the virus and people who were not infected.
Since two different groups were studied, the researchers were limited in making comparisons. The study focused solely on the Pfizer vaccine, and did not provide a breakdown of results by age or sex.
–
