Older adults who received last year’s COVID booster and a high-dose version of the flu vaccine in the same visit may have a potential increased risk of stroke, according to a new FDA-funded study.
Experts urged that the results were preliminary and may be explained by other factors such as the fact that older adults are already at a higher risk for stroke due to their age.
“There is no need for panic, and emphatically no need to stop giving COVID and flu shots at the same time to older adults,” said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, while he reiterated that more research is needed.
The results were also not yet peer-reviewed, meaning it hasn’t been vetted in the normal scientific process.
“These data should be considered by patients and their physicians, but there is no reason for alarm. The increased risk of stroke appears to be small and must be balanced against the known benefit of these vaccines in elderly individuals,” said Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Last year, health authorities noted a safety signal for ischemic stroke in adults over the age of 65 after receiving the bivalent COVID vaccine, prompting further research.
“Additional data are needed before we can consider these findings definitive. It is good that the FDA has made these safety data available to inform the public,” Barouch said.
There was about a 20-35% increased stroke risk in older adults that received both shots in the same visits, according to the study.
“I don’t know that the risk is very meaningful on an individual patient basis,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease specialist at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security.
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/flu-covid-shot-reasonable-amid-safety-review-potential/story?id=104308950
