Some of my friends have asked me if they can get the Covid vaccination if they have allergies like hay fever. The answer is, yes, they can, despite concerns raised when two health workers responded to the shot in December.
However, both had a history of severe allergies and even wore EpiPens for emergencies.
In late December, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency issued a statement after reviewing more than a million doses here and in North America.
It said there was no evidence of an increased risk of an allergic reaction to the Pfizer vaccine, the only exclusion of which is people who are themselves allergic to vaccines.
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I cannot stress strongly enough that allergy does not prohibit vaccination unless that is allergy to a vaccine or its ingredients.
As Rebecca E Glover and colleagues from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UCLH London and Harvard Medical School, USA, say in the BMJ, reporting an allergy as a reason not to vaccinate would be of concern because 20-40% of the population in the UK and the US have at least one form of allergy. That includes hay fever, conjunctivitis, allergic asthma, eczema and contact dermatitis, food allergies, and urticaria caused by food.
Another concern is that public acceptance of a Covid-19 vaccine appears to be declining. Initially, adoption varied by 90%, but by July 2020 it had fallen to 64%.
Most troubling of all, the reluctance to vaccinate appears to be highest in ethnic minority communities, the most vulnerable to Covid. It seems to me that we should be transparent with everyone about the science behind allergies and vaccination because it is generally comforting.
The important message is that having a severe allergy does not preclude vaccination, unless that allergy is to the vaccine itself or its components.
It is critical that this message comes out clearly and openly as a first step in approaching hesitant vaccines. The public could gain more confidence if vaccinators were willing to open up, explain the difference between severe, moderate, and mild allergies, and clarify MHRA’s decision-making.
One concern is that people’s views on Covid vaccines can be transferred to other vaccines, such as childhood immunization, so keeping the lines of communication open is essential, and if vaccination is refused, there is no room for coercion. People need to be reassured that they can return.
The good news is that it may be possible to vaccinate people with allergies to vaccine components. Allergists can evaluate patients with an allergy to a vaccine and assess whether they can be vaccinated with a routine 15 or 30 minute observation or they can have a skin test before being vaccinated.