Moderna vaccine side effects include fatigue, headaches, and muscle pain as well as nausea, vomiting, and facial swelling.
Based on new data released by the Food and Drug Administration, the Moderna vaccine side effects are likely triggered by the shots.
The data suggests the doses were generally better tolerated by people over 64 than for younger people.
The side effects of vaccines are common as they constitute an immune response that affirms the shots are working as intended, according to doctors. Many of them are warning the public to expect stronger-than-usual side effects from the Covid-19 shots than a regular flu shot.
Moderna’s vaccine is deemed more than 94% effective and safe enough to meet agency’s bar for emergency use, the report says. More than 9 in 10 participants who took doses of the vaccine experienced pain at the injection site, almost 7 in 10 felt fatigued and about 6 out of 10 suffered headaches or muscle pain, the FDA said.
Meanwhile, more than 44% of people who took the vaccine had joint pain and over 43% reported chills. The FDA explained that more severe “serious adverse reactions occurred in 0.2% to 9.7% of participants” and were more common after the second dose than the first.
About 15% of vaccine participants had a fever after either the first or second dose, the FDA noted.
Moreover, fewer than 6%, experienced symptoms that lasted for at least a week after taking the shot, but that was similar to the placebo group. Some of the trial participants suffered a fever that lasted more than a week; seven belonged to the vaccine group and four had the placebo, the FDA stressed.
According to the agency, there were seven “serious adverse events” in the trial, but none of them was fatal.
Coronavirus vaccine side effects have been recorded in 10% to 15% of volunteers in Pfizer’s and Moderna’s clinical trials.
Dr. Moncef Slaoui, President Donald Trump’s coronavirus vaccine czar, reiterated that Pfizer’s and Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccines are safe and that the coronavirus vaccine side effects were “significantly noticeable” in some of the patients.
He explained that those side effects could last up to a day and a half. The patients reported redness, fever, muscle aches, pain, chills, and headaches. However, most of the participants did not report any side effects.
“The longer, more important kind of adverse events such as some autoimmune disease or others have not been reported in a different way between the placebo group and the vaccine group in these two trials, which is very reassuring,” he said in an interview with The Washington Post.
“I always make sure we say that [while] we know the short term and I’m going to call it midterm effects of the vaccine is now well understood, the very long-term safety is not yet understood by definition,” he said.
“We really need to make patients aware that this is not going to be a walk in the park,” Dr. Sandra Fryhofer of the American Medical Association told the CDC advisory group on Nov. 23. “They are going to know they had a vaccine. They are probably not going to feel wonderful. But they’ve got to come back for that second dose.”
In November, public health authorities and drugmakers urged the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to inform the public about coronavirus vaccine side effects.
According to Dr. Sandra Fryhofer of the American Medical Association, the coronavirus vaccines of Pfizer and Moderna require two doses at varying intervals. She is concerned about whether her patients will return for a second dose because of the possible side effects they may experience after their first shot.
“We really need to make patients aware that this is not going to be a walk in the park,” Fryhofer said during the meeting. “They are going to know they had a vaccine. They are probably not going to feel wonderful. But they’ve got to come back for that second dose,” she added.
