COVID SCIENCE UPDATES

Allergic reactions 'rare' after Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine; Arthritis drugs aid survival of sickest COVID-19 patients

The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

Allergic reactions 'rare' after Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine

Based on early safety monitoring, anaphylaxis and less serious allergic reactions to the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine appear to be rare, researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the US Food and Drug Administration reported on Wednesday.

Monitoring by the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System jointly run by the two agencies detected only 21 cases of the life-threatening allergic reaction known as anaphylaxis among the nearly 1.9 million first doses of the vaccine administered between Dec. 14 and Dec. 23.

Most people with anaphylaxis had a history of allergies or allergic reactions, according to the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

For 71% of those with anaphylaxis, the allergic reactions occurred within 15 minutes.

The agencies also received reports of 83 cases of less serious allergic reactions, including rashes, itchy skin, scratchy sensations in the throat, and mild respiratory symptoms.

The CDC and FDA say they will continue to work together "to monitor for adverse events ... after receipt of COVID-19 vaccines and will regularly assess the benefits and risks of vaccination."

Arthritis drugs aid survival of sickest COVID-19 patients

Treating critically ill COVID-19 patients with either of two rheumatoid arthritis drugs significantly improves survival rates and shortens the time patients need intensive care, trial results show.

The drugs - tocilizumab, sold as Actemra by Roche , and Kevzara (sarilumab) from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and Sanofi - reduced death rates by 8.5 percentage points among critically ill patients.

That means that for every 12 patients treated with one of the drugs, one life would be saved, said Dr. Anthony Gordon of Imperial College London, coauthor of a report posted on Thursday on medRxiv ahead of peer review.

The data, from 803 severely ill patients, showed that the drugs, which suppress the body's immune response, reduced mortality rates from 35.8% in a control group to 27.3% among patients receiving either drug.

Previous studies had found no clear benefit from these drugs, but they included less severely ill patients treated at different stages in the disease.

"A crucial difference," Gordon said, "may be that in our study, critically ill patients were enrolled within 24 hours" of when their organs started to fail, which suggests the sickest patients may gain the most benefit from these drugs. -- Reuters