Scientists from the University of Hong Kong found that inflammation of the heart muscle (myocarditis) caused by a viral infection leads to death ten times more often than myocarditis caused by the COVID-19 vaccine. Research published Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
The authors of the study used medical records from the public electronic database of Hong Kong hospitals. The researchers compared the incidence of death in myocarditis caused by vaccination with the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine and in myocarditis associated with a viral infection.
As of March 31, 2022, approximately nine million doses of BNT162b2 vaccine had been administered in Hong Kong. There were 119 cases of post-vaccination myocarditis. A total of more than 700 cases of infection-related myocarditis were reported between 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2019.
The incidence of myocarditis after BNT162b2 vaccination was 2.6 per 100,000 vaccinated subjects.
Mortality at 6-month follow-up was 1.0% in the vaccinated myocarditis group and 11% in the virus-induced myocarditis group. Overall, the risk of death in the vaccinated myocarditis group was 92.0% lower than in the infectious myocarditis group.
The study had limitations; one was to consider all cases of infectious myocarditis, not just post-coronavirus. This is because both the overall incidence of coronavirus and the incidence of myocarditis decreased after the initiation of vaccination and the spread of the Omicron strain.
Source: Gazeta
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