“In general, the immediate reactions that require epinephrine are those that occur within that 30-minute window,” said Merin Kuruvilla, an allergist and immunologist at Emory University.
However, it is understandable that some people worry. Taison Bell, an intensive care physician at UVA Health in Charlottesville, Virginia, said she was concerned about her 7-year-old son, Alain, who suffers from severe allergies to various foods, including wheat, peanuts and cow’s milk. Every year Alain has at least two episodes of anaphylaxis.
It’s a relief that Alain is “further ahead in the prioritization scheme,” Bell said. By the time a vaccine is ready for him, he said, “we will have a better idea of the severity of this.” The family plans to discuss their situation with Alain’s doctor.
Ultimately, any component of a coronavirus vaccine is unlikely to cause Alain any problems. The boy has already tolerated other vaccines, including the flu shot, in previous years, and is awaiting his own coronavirus immunization shot, said Bell, who received his first dose of the vaccine from Pfizer on Tuesday.
What about Moderna’s vaccine?
Two volunteers in Moderna’s late-stage clinical trial developed anaphylactic reactions, the company reported at the FDA committee meeting Thursday. None were linked to the company’s vaccine, which also contains mRNA, because they occurred weeks or months after the participants received their injections. One of these volunteers also had a history of asthma and a shellfish allergy.
Moderna, unlike Pfizer, did not exclude people with a history of anaphylaxis from its tests.
Tal Zaks, the company’s chief medical officer, said that although the Moderna’s vaccine recipe was similar to Pfizer’s, there were key molecular differences that set the two products apart. Zaks stated that poor reactions to the Pfizer vaccine do not guarantee that similar events will occur in relation to Moderna doses.
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