Bell’s palsy has been reported as an adverse effect of Covid-19 vaccination, but infection triples the risk compared to vaccination, researchers have found.
- A study has demonstrated the existence of a link between Covid-19 and Bell’s palsy.
- Bell’s palsy is a form of temporary paralysis or weakness on one side of the face.
- According to the authors, if we consider Bell’s palsy as the adverse event, infection with Covid-19 is associated with a risk of Bell’s palsy multiplied by 3.23 compared to vaccination.
There is a link between Covid-19 and Bell’s palsy, sudden weakness on one side of the face. This was demonstrated by scientists in a systematic review and meta-analysis published in JAMA OtolaryngologyApril 27, 2023.
Covid-19 can cause Bell’s palsy
According to them, people who received the Covid-19 vaccine were more likely to develop Bell’s palsy than those who had not been vaccinated. However, the risk of developing this disorder, also called idiopathic facial paralysis, is higher in individuals infected with the virus, specify the authors.
To reach their conclusion, they assessed studies looking at Bell’s palsy and anti-covid injections or coronavirus infections between December 2019 and August 15, 2022. They incorporated 17 research into their quantitative analysis, including four phase III randomized clinical trials of vaccines – one for Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, Janssen and Oxford/AstraZeneca – that reported Bell’s palsy as an adverse event.
“Pooled data from vaccine clinical trials showed that the likelihood of developing Bell’s palsy was higher in the 77,525 people vaccinated against Covid-19 than in people who received a placebo., reported Amir Kheradmand, a neurologist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. The occurrence of Bell’s palsy did not vary from one vaccine to another, detail the scientists.
However, compared to vaccination, infection with SARS-CoV-2 or its variants tripled the risk of developing idiopathic facial paralysis. “These results show that the benefits of vaccination against Covid-19 far outweigh the potential risk of developing Bell’s palsy.“said Ali Rafati, of the University of Medical Sciences of Iran in Tehran.
Other vaccines have been linked to Bell’s palsy
Bell’s palsy occurs when a nerve in the face (called the facial nerve) swells and becomes compressed. It only affects one side of the face which becomes weak and droopy.
Treatment usually involves medications, called corticosteroids. Most patients with this disorder improve within several months, even without treatment.
There is precedent for the association of vaccines with an increased risk of Bell’s palsy, notes Nate Jowett of Massachusetts Eye and Ear and Harvard Medical School in Boston, who was not involved in the study. “In 2004, an intranasal influenza vaccine approved in Switzerland was shown to significantly increase the risk of Bell’s palsy with an estimated relative risk of 19 times the risk in controls within 1 to 91 days of vaccination, and He was stopped“, he wrote to MedPage Today.
