Immune Systems Advisor

Australia’s therapeutic goods administration (TGA) has announced that reports on myocarditis and pericarditis cases following mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna are not necessary anymore and will no longer be provided. Australia’s national drug authority says this is because the rates have stabilised. However, the TGA will “continue to monitor and review these adverse effects and will communicate any updated safety advice if needed,” they said in a statement. Both myocarditis (inflammation of the heart) and pericarditis (inflammation of the membrane around the heart) are considered side effects of mRNA vaccines manufactured by Pfizer and Moderna, according to the Food and Drug Administration. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s independent committee of vaccine experts has also found a link between heart inflammation and the mRNA vaccines after over 1,200 cases of heart inflammation were reported in people post-vaccination. In Australia, the total number of ...

Medical experts are pushing governments and authorities to clarify how to define and deal with   long COVID   in Australia as clinics contend with growing waiting lists for patients suffering from the condition. “We are seeing different incidence and prevalence compared to international cohorts, but we haven’t had large population-level studies to understand this better in our context,” said infectious disease expert Dr. Irani Thevarajan of the Peter Doherty Institute. She said Australia’s situation was different from other countries because of its high vaccination rates, which makes it a “distinct population compared to other cohorts and other studies.” Thevarajan said the Doherty Institute was not overwhelmed yet with patients, but it was dealing with increasing waiting lists. “We know that we’ve got an increased demand for review for long COVID. There’s a lot of active discussion about how we can expand our resources to provide the appropriate kind of care for these referra...