CDC Announces 'Emergency Meeting' to Discuss Cases of Rare Heart Inflammation After Covid Vaccines

Leah Barkoukis | June 11, 2021 7:00 AM

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices announced Thursday it will be holding an “emergency meeting” next week to discuss the COVID-19 vaccines in adolescents and reports of myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart, after mRNA vaccination.

The CDC said 226 cases reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System in those 30 years old and under, out of 475, “meet CDC working case definition” of myocarditis/pericarditis. Reporting in the VAERS system “generally, cannot determine cause and effect,” the CDC noted.

Most recovered, but 15 are still in the hospital and three are in the intensive care unit, though two of those patients were described as having “significant comorbidities.”

"It's a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison because, again, these are preliminary reports. Not all these will turn out to be true myocarditis or pericarditis reports," said CDC’s Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, reports Yahoo News.

Shimabukuro said their findings were mostly "consistent" with reports of rare cases of heart inflammation that had been studied in Israel and reported from the U.S. Department of Defense earlier this year.
The CDC is working on more data and analysis on the reports ahead of the emergency meeting of its own advisers next week, he said, and also planned to analyze the risk of heart inflammation posed by catching COVID-19.
The new details about myocarditis and pericarditis emerged first in presentations to a panel of independent advisers for the Food and Drug Administration, who are meeting Thursday to discuss how the regulator should approach emergency use authorization for using COVID-19 vaccines in younger children. (Yahoo News)