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. 2021 Nov 29;7(4):20552173211061543.
doi: 10.1177/20552173211061543. eCollection 2021 Oct.

Evaluation of short-term safety of COVID-19 vaccines in patients with multiple sclerosis from Latin America

Ricardo Alonso  1 , Aníbal Chertcoff  2 , Felisa Del V Leguizamón  3 , Lorna Galleguillos Goiry  4 , Maria B Eizaguirre  1 , Roberto Rodríguez  5 , Marta Sosa  6 , Susana Carballido  7 , Verónica Cruchet  8 , Agnes de Jong-Martis  9 , Susana Giachello  10 , Paula Henestroza  10 , Flavia Ferrandina  11 , Johana Bauer  11 , Adriana Carrá  2 , Berenice A Silva  1
Affiliations

Evaluation of short-term safety of COVID-19 vaccines in patients with multiple sclerosis from Latin America

Ricardo Alonso et al. Mult Scler J Exp Transl Clin. .

Abstract

Background: To date, there are no data available on the safety of COVID-19 vaccines in Latin American patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS).

Objective: Characterize safety of COVID-19 vaccines in Latin American (LATAM) patients with Multiple Sclerosis (pwMS).

Methods: A cross-sectional study between February 1, 2021, and April 30, 2021. Individuals with MS from LATAM countries were invited to participate in a self-administered web-based survey, through MS patient organizations from the region.

Results: 393 vaccinated pwMS from 10 different Latin American countries were included. The vaccines administered were: inactivated virus vaccines (IVV) in 38.2% of patients, adenovirus vector vaccines (AdV) in 48.8% and mRNA vaccines 13%. All patients received at least one dose of any of the COVID-19 vaccines and 123 (31.3%) declared receiving a second dose. Mean (SD) age 41.5 (11.8) years, 82.4% female, MS disease duration: 8.4 (8.2) years. No serious adverse events were reported with any of the COVID-19 vaccines after either the first or second dose. A lower frequency of adverse events was found with IVV (22%) in comparison with AdV (46.4%) and mRNA (35.3%) (p < 0.01). Five participants reported having an MS relapse after IVV first dose.

Conclusion: COVID-19 vaccines applied in LATAM proved safe for MS patients.

Keywords: COVID-19; Multiple sclerosis; safety; vaccines.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of conflicting interests: The author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Ricardo Alonso has received personal compensation for consulting, serving on the scientific advisory board, lecturing as well as professional/travel accommodation stipends among other activities from Biogen Idec, Genzyme, Merck-Serono, Novartis, Teva and Roche. Anibal Chertcoff has received speaking honoraria and travel stipends from Merck-Serono and Roche. María Bárbara Eizaguirre has received personal compensation for consulting, lecturing as well as stipends for national and international conferences among other activities from Biogen Idec, Genzyme, Novartis and Roche. Berenice Anabel Silva has received economic retribution for the development of educational, scientific activities and travel grants to Congresses from Biogen, Novartis, Merck, Genzyme, Teva, Bayer, Tuteur and Roche. Felisa Leguizamón has received economic retribution for the development of educational activities as well as travel stipends from Bayer, Biogen Idec, Biosidus, Genzyme, Novartis, Merck, Raffo, Tuteur, and Teva. Rest of the authors report no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Participation in the survey by country of origin.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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