1. Varicella-Zoster Virus–Induced Neurologic Disease After COVID-19 Vaccination: A Multicenter Observational Cohort Study.
- Author
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Elbaz, Meital, Hoffman, Tomer, Yahav, Dafna, Dovrat, Sarah, Ghanem-Zoubi, Nesrin, Atamna, Alaa, Grupel, Daniel, Reisfeld, Sharon, Hershman-Sarafov, Mirit, Ciobotaro, Pnina, Najjar-Debbiny, Ronza, Brosh-Nissimov, Tal, Chazan, Bibiana, Yossepowitch, Orit, Wiener-Well, Yonit, Halutz, Ora, Reich, Shelley, Ben-Ami, Ronen, and Paran, Yael
- Subjects
CHICKENPOX ,COVID-19 ,NEUROLOGICAL disorders ,HERPES zoster ,COVID-19 vaccines ,VACCINE safety ,POLYMERASE chain reaction - Abstract
Background Early reports described an increased risk of herpes zoster following receipt of mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines. The objective was to assess whether COVID-19 vaccine is associated with varicella-zoster virus–induced neurologic disease (VZV-ND). Methods This multicenter retrospective case-control study with a test-negative design was conducted at 12 hospitals in Israel. We included all patients admitted with VZV-ND between January 2020 and December 2021 and matched controls with a negative polymerase chain reaction result for VZV in cerebrospinal fluid. Results We identified 188 patients meeting the case definition of VZV-ND who were admitted during the study period. Cases were matched with 376 controls. There was no significant variation in the incidence of VZV-ND between 1 year preceding and 1 year following the deployment of BNT162b2 in Israel. Analysis of persons who had received at least 1 dose of COVID-19 vaccine (n = 259) showed similar proportions of VZV-ND and non–VZV-ND in 4 intervals (30, 42, 50, 60 days) following the last vaccine dose. The median time from the last vaccine dose to hospitalization with a neurologic syndrome was 53 days (IQR, 25–128) and 82 days (IQR, 36–132) for VZV-ND and non–VZV-ND, respectively, not reaching statistical significance (P =.056). The rate of VZV-ND in vaccinated patients was no different from the rate in the unvaccinated group (30.9% vs 35.4%, P =.2). Conclusions We did not find an association between COVID-19 vaccine and VZV-ND. Since COVID-19 vaccine is now recommended yearly, every fall and winter, establishing the safety of the vaccine is of great importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
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