Fewer heart attacks and strokes after Covid vaccination. This is revealed by a maxi-study on almost 50 million people, practically the entire English population, published in ‘Nature Communications’ by scientists from the universities of Cambridge, Bristol and Edinburgh. “This research further supports the large body of evidence on the effectiveness of the Covid-19 vaccination programme, which has been shown to provide protection against severe Covid and has saved millions of lives around the world”, says co-first author Samantha Ip, a researcher at the University of Cambridge.
The work – carried out thanks to the Data Science Centre of the British Heart Foundation (Bhf) at Health Data Research UK – was conducted by analyzing anonymized health data of 46 million adults in England in a secure environment made available by the National Health Service, relating to the period between 8 December 2020 and 23 January 2022. The data scientists compared the incidence of cardiovascular diseases after the anti-Covid vaccination with the incidence of the same pathologies before vaccination or without vaccination, during the first 2 years of the national vaccination program which by January 2022 made it possible to immunize over 90% of the population with at least one dose of vaccine, as highlighted by William Whiteley, associate director of the Bhf Data Science Centre and professor of neurology and epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh.
The researchers observed that “the incidence of arterial thrombosis, such as heart attacks and strokeswas up to 10% lower in the 13-24 weeks following the first dose of the anti-Covid vaccine. After a second dose, the incidence was up to 27% lower with the AstraZeneca vaccine and up to 20% lower with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. The incidence of common venous thrombotic events, mainly pulmonary embolism and deep vein thrombosis of the lower limbs, followed a similar trend”. The scientists recall that “the incidence of cardiovascular disease is higher after Covid-19, especially in severe cases of disease. This could explain why the incidence of heart attacks and strokes is lower in vaccinated people than in unvaccinated people”, although “further explanations – they point out – are beyond the scope of this study”.
“Previous research – the authors point out – has found that the incidence of rare cardiovascular complications is higher after some anti-Covid vaccines. For example, myocarditis and pericarditis have been reported following mRNA vaccines such as Pfizer/Biotech and vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia after adenoviral vaccines such as AstraZeneca. This study supports these findings, but it is important – the researchers point out – that it has not identified new adverse cardiovascular conditions associated with vaccination against Covid-19 and offers further reassurance that the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks“.
“Given the critical role of Covid-19 vaccines in protecting people from Covid – comments the researcher of the University of Bristol Venexia Walker, co-last author of the article – it is important to continue to study the associated benefits and risks. The availability of data on the entire population has allowed us to evaluate different combinations of anti-Covid vaccines and to consider rare cardiovascular complications”.
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