Thread by @VirusesImmunity

Are vaccines harmful or helpful for #longcovid?

@gushamilton and team asked through observational study of COVID patients post discharge - 82% with long lasting symptoms (>8 months). Symptoms compared 1 month post vaccination to the unvaccinated.🧵 (1/)

medrxiv.org/content/10.110…

When compared to matched unvaccinated participants (n=22), those who had receive a vaccine (n=44) had no worsening of symptoms. This is reassuring for people with long covid thinking about getting a vaccine. (2/)

In fact, a small overall improvement in Long Covid symptoms, with a decrease in worsening symptoms (5.6% vaccinated vs 14.2% unvaccinated) and increase in symptom resolution (23.2% vaccinated vs 15.4% unvaccinated)(p=0.035) was reported. This is encouraging 👍🏼 (3/)

What about the impact of different vaccines? No difference in response was identified between Pfizer-BioNTech (n=22) or Oxford-AstraZeneca (n=22) vaccines.

Looks like long haulers have good vaccine options available. (4/)

A limitation of this study (inherent to observational studies & stated by the authors) is that symptom recall may be influenced by receipt of vaccination (a placebo/nocebo effect). (5/)

We certainly need more studies like this to understand the impact of vaccines on #LongCovid.
Kudos to the authors 👏🏼 👏🏼

We also need to understand the underlying mechanisms of #longCOVID and #MECFS, to develop better diagnosis and therapy. (End)

elemental.medium.com/how-vaccines-m…