The recent news from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of potential links between the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine and a type of stroke in older adults has been met with caution from Israeli health officials. Salman Zarka, the head of Israel’s coronavirus task force, has stated that they have not found any evidence of a similar connection, despite having re-checked all their data.
The European Union’s drug regulator has also reported that it has not found any safety signals in Europe related to the vaccine. In addition, Pfizer and BioNTech have released a statement saying that they have observed limited reports of ischemic strokes in people 65 and older who had taken the vaccine, but that there is no evidence to suggest a connection between the vaccine and the strokes. They also noted that they nor the FDA and CDC had observed similar findings across other monitoring systems.
It is clear that the safety of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is of utmost importance to health authorities around the world. While the FDA and CDC have reported a potential link to a type of stroke in older adults, it is reassuring that Israeli and European Union health officials have not observed any evidence of a similar connection. Pfizer and BioNTech have also noted that there is no evidence to suggest a connection between the vaccine and the strokes, and that they have not seen similar findings across other monitoring systems.