Adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination in Kwara State, North-central Nigeria
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Date
2022-07-05
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
PLOS Global Public Health
Abstract
Safe and effective vaccination remains the mainstay of control of COVID-19 because there
is still no universally recommended treatment. This strategy is however being threatened by
vaccine hesitancy and resistance due to fear of adverse events and safety concerns. It is,
therefore, necessary to study post-vaccination adverse events (AE) in various populations
and geographical areas. The objective of this study was to analyze the adverse events following
COVID-19 vaccination in five major immunization centers of Kwara State Nigeria. A
retrospective descriptive study of the adverse events following AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccination
that were reported from five immunization centers of Kwara State, North-central
Nigeria from March to July 2021 was carried out. Statistical Package for Social Science version
26 was used for analysis. Adverse event classification and severity were compared
based on age, gender, and time to onset of adverse event and vaccine dose type using the
Chi-square test. The incidence of COVID-19 vaccine AE was 1.6%. There was female predominance
(51.6%) and a mean age of 41.6±13.7 years. Most of the AE (95.8%) were systemic
and mild (81.1%) without a requirement for any therapeutic intervention. Fatal
outcome was not reported in any of the AE and the time to outcome of AE was 2 days in
most cases (45.3%). No significant association was found between the variables studied
and the adverse event type and severity. The low incidence and mild nature of adverse
events reported in this study will add to the body of knowledge regarding vaccine adverse
events and may eventually impact vaccine uptake.
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Keywords
Vaccination