Side Effect Profile of COVID-19 Vaccine among Health Workers in a Tertiary Health Institution in South-South Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Side effect following vaccination usually ranges from mild to moderate and occasionally severe in a small proportion of people. Covid-19 vaccine is no exception as side effects have been reported which are mostly mild to moderate and transient. The chances of any of these side effect following vaccination differ according to the specific COVID-19 vaccine.
 Objective: To determine the side effect profile of the Health workers that received the COVID-19 vaccination in the Federal Medical Centre, Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, Nigeria.
 Materials and Method: This study was a descriptive cross-sectional study. It was carried out between 15th and 30th April 2021 among 151 health workers that received COVID-19 vaccination in the Federal Medical Centre, Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, Nigeria. The data were collected with a predesigned questionnaire and were analysed using IBM SPSS 23.0 version.
 Results: About 52.3% were female health workers, 49.0% were aged between 36–45 years. Side effects were reported in 9 of every 10 health workers who received the vaccine. Most side effects (53.0%) started on the day of vaccination. The most common side effect was pain at the injection site, and it was reported by 104 recipients of the vaccine (68.9%). Fever, headache, tiredness and chills were reported in 57.0%, 49.0%, 47.7% and 43.7%, respectively.
 Conclusion: As with medications and other vaccines, COVID-19 vaccines have side effects. Protective immunity against COVID-19 is developed following vaccination. In the face of a still rapidly evolving situation, what seems obvious is that vaccination currently remains the best route to achieving herd immunity.

Adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination in Kwara State, North-central Nigeria

“…AE severity in our study was mild to moderate, which is consistent with practically all prior investigations of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine [12,20,23,25,29]. For instance, none of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine recipients in Nepal developed severe adverse events or required long-term hospitalization and no deaths were reported within a week [20].…”

“…The incidence of adverse events in this study is far lower than 79.4% and 90.9% reported for the same vaccine in Nepal and Korea respectively [20,25]. Other studies found 93.5% incidence in Afghanistan and 90.1% in South-south Nigeria [12,23]. A possible explanation for the wide disparity in the incidence of adverse events in these studies compared to ours is that all of these studies were carried out among health care workers whereas, ours was carried out among the general population.…”

“…The immune system of every individual reacts differently to vaccines, with some having more physical response to the vaccine than others. Some reasons for this difference are gender, age, individual's health status, time of the day that vaccine was received, individual's nutrition, and environment [12].…”

“…This has led to the dissemination of COVID-19 myths and conspiracies [11]. For COVID-19 vaccination to be globally successful, the conspiracy theories have to be demystified totally, and the issue of the serious COVID-19 vaccine adverse events should be resolved while more studies to support what is likely and what is unlikely are conducted [12].…”

“…Despite the serious commitment of governments and health institutions to quickly achieve herd immunity by COVID-19 vaccination, information especially from social media on adverse events following intake of the vaccine has resulted in a considerable level of fear among the general population in Nigeria hence, jeopardizing the achievement of the vaccination program [16]. Several adverse events associated with COVID-19 vaccines have been reported especially among healthcare workers [12,[19][20][21]. However, there has been a paucity of data on adverse events following immunization with the COVID-19 vaccine among the general population in our community.…”