Mount Tabor United Methodist Church, 3543 Robinhood Road, Winston Salem, will have a shredding event from 9 a.m. to noon April 23. They will accept monetary donations to benefit food programs serving children in Forsyth County and other missions of the United Methodist Women. Make checks payable to Mt. Tabor UMC-Circle 5. For more information, call the church 336-765-5561 or go to www.mttaborumc.org.
New Philadelphia Moravian Church, 4440 Country Club Road, Winston-Salem, will have a document shred from 9 a.m. to noon April 23. The cost is $5 per box. Enter from Kilpatrick Street. They will unload. You do not have to get out of your vehicle. The shredding is sponsored by the Advent Class. Proceeds will benefit outreach ministries of the Moravian Church. For more information, call 336-972-0494 or visit www.newphilly.org.
Fries Memorial Moravian Church, 251 N. Hawthorne Road, Winston Salem, will have a community shred day from 9 a.m. to noon April 30. Shamrock Shredding will be shredding documents on-site in the church parking lot. Donations of $5 per file box or bag are requested. Paper only, no plastic or non-paper trash will be accepted. Proceeds will benefit local youth and family ministries.
Hopewell Moravian Church will have two shredding events at the Griffith Volunteer Fire Department, 5190 Peters Creek Parkway, Winston-Salem. The first will be 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. April 30. The second will be 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. June 25. A $5 per bag or box donation is suggested.
In a recent study posted to the medRxiv* preprint server, researchers evidenced that messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA)-based coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines are safe in pregnancy, with lower rates of significant adverse event following immunization (AEFIs) in pregnant women than non-pregnant females.
Multiple research works have published positive recommendations for mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines in pregnancy, based on the evidence of high efficacy in pre-authorization clinical trials. However, in the absence of a contemporaneous control group to enable comparison with background rates of AEFIs and comparisons based solely on historical rates of AEFIs, apprehensions surrounding the safety of mRNA vaccines during pregnancy are still lurking around.
The Canadian National Vaccine Safety (CANVAS) Network, established during the 2009 influenza pandemic, has been monitoring COVID-19 vaccine safety in Canada since the vaccine rollout in December 2020 to provide rapid, real-time safety data.
The CANVAS actively follow-up individuals with significant health events and actively enrolls control group(s) to enable comparisons with unvaccinated individuals in a similar time frame.
About the study
In the present study, researchers recruited pregnant and non-pregnant females aged 15-49 years, as of 4 November 2021, under the ‘vaccinated’ and ‘control’ cohorts in Canada to evaluate the safety profile of mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines.
The females in the vaccinated cohort had received the first dose of a vaccine within seven days before enrolling for the study. They had an active email address and telephone number and could communicate in English or French. They reported the occurrence of AEFIs over an email after seven days following each dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and at seven months after their first vaccine dose. The control group participants were unvaccinated and reported significant health events that occurred seven days, 28 days, and six months after enrolling in the study.
All the participants had to report injection site reactions; however, only those who indicated having a significant health event had to provide further details.
The researchers analyzed two types of exposures for the study analysis:
vaccination status among pregnant people;
pregnancy status among vaccinated people.
Two endpoints were analyzed, including ‘significant’ and ‘serious’ health events, including common and uncommon symptoms following the first and second doses of COVID-19 vaccines. The former is defined as a new or worsening of a health event sufficient to cause work/school absenteeism or medical consultation in the previous seven days, and the latter describes any event resulting in hospitalization.
Likewise, they analyzed three vaccine groups:
BNT162b2,
mRNA-1273, and
any mRNA vaccine.
They also examined associations between the outcomes and the exposures, using two sets of univariate/multivariate (MV) logistic regression models. When fitting MV models, they adjusted known or expected covariates such as age group, prior COVID-19 infection, and trimester of pregnancy, as appropriate.
Lastly, they conducted two sensitivity analyses to evaluate the robustness of the findings.
Study findings
Significant health events were lower in pregnant people than in age-matched non-pregnant vaccine recipients. Among pregnant females, AEFI was higher in those who received the second dose of the mRNA-1273 vaccine. However, there was no difference in AEFIs after either dose of the BNT162b2 vaccine.
Initial clinical trials of the mRNA-1273 and BNT162b2 vaccines have reported relatively high rates of AEFIs compared with most routinely used vaccines, including higher rates for dose two than dose one.
The current study analysis revealed similar patterns among pregnant females. Although the analysis specifically quantified the significant and serious AEFI rates in this population for each of the mRNA vaccines, the lower rate of significant AEFIs among pregnant people, compared with vaccinated non-pregnant females, revealed interesting insights.
During pregnancy, dynamic immunologic adaptations occur, for instance, a skewed response towards a T helper cell 2 (Th2)-dominant state. Since mRNA vaccines have specifically elicited a Th1-biased immune response, the Th2-bias during pregnancy may be partially responsible for this lower rate of significant AEFIs.
Conclusions
Considering the high rate of complications related to COVID-19 in pregnancy, it is crucial to maximize vaccine coverage in this at-high risk population for the protection of both the pregnant female and her young infant. Immunized mothers pass on antigen-specific immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 via placenta or breast milk.
Overall, the study data appropriately informed about the reactogenicity of COVID-19 vaccines during pregnancy. This information should be considered alongside effectiveness and immunogenicity data to make appropriate recommendations about the best use of COVID-19 vaccines in pregnancy. The long-term data from this cohort following a six-month follow-up, when available, could also prove quite useful. Similar data from countries where the ChAdOx-S vaccines are used could provide a complete overview of the safety of COVID-19 vaccines in pregnancy.
In the future, research studies should identify whether the observed reduced reactogenicity of non-COVID-19 mRNA vaccines in pregnant people in this study is a feature of the vaccine platform or these specific vaccines.
*Important notice
medRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information.
Since the booster programme was rolled out on Sep 15, a total of 3,194,494 have received these jabs as of Jan 31, said HSA.
In this category, there were 553 adverse events reports (0.03 per cent of doses administered) associated with the use of the PfizerBioNTech/Comirnaty vaccine and 289 such reports (0.03 per cent of doses administered) with the Moderna/Spikevax vaccine.
There were also 73 serious adverse event reports (0.002 per cent of administered doses), of which 15 cases were myocarditis and pericarditis – inflammation of the heart muscles and outer lining of the heart respectively.
ADVERSE EVENTS OF SPECIAL INTEREST
HSA said that it is closely monitoring several adverse events of special interest, including anaphylaxis, myocarditis, pericarditis and cerebral venous thrombosis.
So far, the incidence rate of anaphylaxis reported locally with the vaccines has remained “low and stable” at about 0.89 per 100,000 doses administered, said HSA.
Of the 88 cases of anaphylaxis reported with the mRNA vaccines, all the patients recovered after medical treatment, said the authority.
It added that the number of cases of anaphylaxis associated with the second dose was lower than with the first dose of mRNA vaccines. To date, HSA has not received any cases of anaphylaxis associated with the booster dose.
For myocarditis and pericarditis, HSA said that it has as of end-January received 115 reports following the administration of mRNA vaccines. These cases happen more frequently in younger males below 30 years old, and more often with the second dose, said HSA.
One case of myocarditis with Sinovac-Coronavac vaccine has also been reported.
“Most cases are mild, with individuals reported to have recovered or are recovering,” said the authority.
“It should be noted that COVID-19 infection is also known to be associated with myocarditis,” HSA added.
There have been rare cases of cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT), or blood clots occurring in the veins of the brain, reported with the mRNA vaccines.
As of end-January, HSA has received 13 suspected reports of cerebral venous thrombosis with such vaccines.
“Vaccines are the best way to protect people from COVID-19 and have already saved many lives,” said HSA.
“HSA’s current assessment is that the overall benefits of the Pfizer-BioNTech/Comirnaty, Moderna/Spikevax and Sinovac-CoronaVac COVID-19 vaccines in preventing COVID-19 and serious complications associated with COVID-19 far outweigh any currently known adverse events,” it added.
On 18 February, 2022, WHO along with the Presidency of the European Council, the Presidency of France and the Presidency of South Africa, will hold a press conference to announce the first recipients (the ‘spokes’) of mRNA technology on the African continent as part of the global mRNA technology transfer hub located in Cape Town, South Africa.
Speakers will showcase the global collaboration between WHO, Member States and centres of excellence and training to develop strategic and sustainable solutions to build national and regional capacities for pharmaceutical manufacturing so that countries can become more self-reliant and enabled to address health crises and reach universal health coverage.
Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry has declared school-based activities an essential service, so visitors do not need to present a vaccine passport.
Meanwhile, Health Minister Adrian Dix says about two-thirds of all non-urgent cancelled surgeries in the province are in the Interior Health region.
He says the proportion of health-care workers calling in sick is higher in that region, so there are some challenges in clearing backlogs.
“But most everywhere else, we’re going to be aggressively moving to rebook surgeries in the coming weeks because people need their surgeries. And even if we describe these as non-urgent scheduled surgeries, they’re all important, they’re all necessary,” he says.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 16, 2022.
In a recent study posted to the medRxiv* pre-print server, a team of researchers assessed the differences in risk of hospitalization in adults after infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Omicron and Delta variants of concern (VOCs).
The emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 VOCs, Delta, and Omicron necessitated extensive research about the manifestations of the variants. The varied effects of the VOCs on adult patients, including the severity of disease and COVID-19-related hospitalizations, have been comprehensively studied. However, several studies suggest significant differences in the impact of the different variants on the occurrence of serious hospital events.
About the study
The present retrospective cohort study investigated the differences and the various factors involved in COVID-19-related hospital events occurring in adults infected with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron and Delta VOCs.
COVID-19 cases in France between 6 December 2021 and 7 Jan 2022 were recorded and grouped into two arms – Delta and Omicron arms. The cases eligible for the study were of patients over 18 years of age, who had symptomatic manifestations of COVID-19 and were reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) positive for SARS-CoV-2. Among the eligible cases, patients suspected to be infected with the Omicron VOC and the Delta VOC were known as exposed and non-exposed individuals, respectively.
The two groups were compared based on known risk factors like age, gender, the status of vaccination, and comorbidities. The study considered intensive care unit (ICU) admission of the COVID-19 patient, requiring critical care, or, death of the patient in the hospital as a serious hospital event.
A multiplex quantitative RT-PCR (RT-qPCR) was used to characterize the variant present in the SARS-CoV-2-positive samples. The results of the mutation screening were evaluated based on the presence of spike proteins, characteristic to either Delta or Omicron VOC. The primary outcome of the study was the number of COVID-19-related serious hospital events among symptomatic patients who had tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron or Delta VOC.
Results
The study results showed that a total of 149,064 patients were included in the research. A total of 36% of patients in the SARS-CoV-2 Delta VOC cohort were unvaccinated as compared to the 17% of patients in the Omicron VOC arm. A slightly higher number of comorbidities was observed in the Delta arm than in the Omicron arm.
During the follow-up period of the study, 497 serious hospital events were observed, of which the Delta arm accounted for 447 cases while the Omicron arm had 50 cases. ICU admission was the most common serious hospital event.
Within the Delta VOC arm, 92% and 97% of the serious hospital events were observed within 14 and 21 days of SARS-CoV-2 detection while in the Omicron cohort, 84% and 100% of the serious events were observed within 14 and 21 days of the positive COVID-19 test, respectively. Notably, patients who were vaccinated with the booster dose had a higher number of serious hospital events as compared to the patients vaccinated with the primary dose.
Patients belonging to the age group of 18 to 79 years were at 7.7 times lower risk of serious hospital events in the case of Omicron symptomatic patients as compared to the Delta symptomatic patients. In patients 80 years and older, Omicron-infected patients had a 3.3-fold lower risk of serious events than patients infected with Delta. It was also noted that the odds of occurrence of a serious event increased with the increasing age of the patient. Also, male patients were at a significantly higher risk of serious events than women; this risk was lesser in vaccinated individuals.
The risk of serious hospital events was lowered by 6.7 times in vaccinated patients of ages between 18 and 79 years, irrespective of whether they received the booster vaccine or not, while the same risk was lowered by 2.2 times in patients of ages over 80 years who had received the primary vaccine dose; the risk was further reduced by 4.3 times when the patients received the booster dose.
Conclusion
The study findings showed that the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron VOC has lower disease severity and a lower incidence of serious hospital events as compared to the Delta VOC. Despite the lower vaccine efficacy reported against the Omicron VOC as compared to the Delta VOC, no significant difference was observed in the protection provided by the vaccines against severe hospital events in this study.
According to the authors, the higher risk of occurrence of serious events in the elderly can be lowered with vaccination and booster dose administration.
*Important notice
medRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information.
