New Delhi: The Food and Drug Administration of the US (FDA) on Monday issued a warning, in which it said that “The Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine could cause rare neurological complications in some cases.”
The FDA in its statement said that “the FDA is announcing revisions to the vaccine recipient and vaccination provider fact sheets for the Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) Covid-19 Vaccine to include the information about an observed increased risk of Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) following vaccination.”
While the FDA stated that it wasn’t established yet whether the vaccine could cause the condition, it observed an increase in reports of a sometimes paralyzing condition called the Guillain-Barre syndrome.
The FDA further informed that the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines do not show any such issue.
According to the data of the US drug regulator “Out of the 12.8 million Janssen vaccines administered, as many as 100 preliminary reports of GBS had been registered with the US Vaccine Adverse Reporting System. Guillain Barre syndrome (a neurological disorder in which the body’s immune system damages nerve cells, causing muscle weakness and sometimes paralysis) has occurred in some people who have received the Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine,”
The FDA urged people to take care and seek immediate medical attention if symptoms such as weakness or tingling in the arms and legs arise, especially if it spreads. Other symptoms doing the rounds include difficulty in walking, speaking, chewing, or swallowing; double vision; and bowel or bladder control problems.
A few months back – The United States Centers for Disease Control and the FDA had briefly put a pause on the use of the J&J vaccine after recording a rare type of blood clotting complications but lifted the embargo in April after confirming that the risks were low and it was treatable.