Moderna COVID vaccine may pose higher heart inflammation risk – U.S. CDC

(Reuters) -Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine may pose a higher risk of heart inflammation in some age groups than Pfizer-BioNTech’s shot, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday, citing recent data.

The agency, however, said the findings on myocarditis and pericarditis, types of heart inflammation linked to both the mRNA shots, were not consistent across all of the U.S. vaccine safety monitoring systems.

The CDC’s analysis comes as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s advisers meet on Tuesday to discuss the authorization of Moderna’s vaccine for children and teens aged 6-17.

Based on data from the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) system, the incidence of heart inflammation was 97.3 cases per million doses for males aged 18-39 following a second dose of Moderna’s shot, versus 81.7 cases per million Pfizer vaccine doses.

Available information suggests that most people with myocarditis after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination recover over time, the CDC said.

(Reporting by Manas Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Anil D’Silva)