COVID-19 | Everything you need to know about the effects of vaccines

In recent weeks, news related to the side effects of vaccines has once again gained prominence in the public debate. First were the various reports of unfavorable and repetitive episodes among young people between the ages of 18 and 20 who received the vaccine against COVID-19 from AstraZeneca / University of Oxford.

Later, many parents were put on alert after the statement of the General Directorate of Medicines, Supplies and Drugs (Digemid) of the Ministry of Health (Minsa) about the possibility of cases of myocarditis and pericarditis among children between 12 and 17 years old that they receive the doses of Pfizer/BioNTech.

—Various reactions—

“We must remember that . Usually, the mild ones can occur more frequently. When the initial safety profile is seen –in phases 1 and 2 of clinical trials– and the possible effects that it can cause in the body are found, these will only begin to be recorded at the end of the trial, in the stages of epidemiological surveillance, when the drug is already being used in millions of people ”, explains the Trade epidemiologist and immunization expert Edward Mezones.

Another aspect to consider is that each organism will react differently to the vaccines. “There are some of the vaccines that we receive when we are infants that can generate the same type of discomfort or other more than those that are being registered now, but they are transitory. Here what is important is to buy the risk and the benefit. Do we bear the possibility of a discomfort that will go away in a few days or do we run the risk of becoming infected with COVID-19?”, The infectious disease doctor Claudia Quezada Osoria comments to this newspaper.

-Heart problems-

In the case of myocarditis and pericarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle and inflammation of the outer layer that covers the heart, respectively), both specialists agree that Digemid’s communication was

But they also remember that, proportionally with vaccinated adolescents, the reported cases are very few and still

“If these cases arise, they are manageable. Nor does it mean that, if it happens, this will necessarily cause death. They are manageable conditions, but we must insist that the frequency of their occurrence is very low ”, clarifies the infectologist Quezada. For Mezones the authorities must

To consider

• Mild effects after vaccination are caused by the immune system reacting to a simulated infection.

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