© Provided by The Independent A healthcare worker in Alaska suffered a severe allergic reaction after receiving Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine this week, The New York Times reports.
The person was reportedly in the hospital as of Wednesday under observation due to the reaction, according to three people familiar with reports of the person's health.
Government officials are now scrambling to understand more about the individual and their reaction to the vaccine, and the report comes after two individuals in the United Kingdom also experienced an allergic reaction to Pfizer's Covid-19 jab last week.
This individual in Alaska has no history of drug allergies, the newspaper reported, but it was not yet known if they suffered from other severe allergies.
Fears about the potential allergic reaction individuals could experience from Pfizer's vaccine started following reports last week of two individuals in the UK who suffered a reaction, the National Health Service reported.
Both workers, who have a "strong past history of allergic reactions", recovered from the allergic reaction after receiving proper treatment. But it prompted the drug regulator the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to recommend people with a history of "serious" allergic reactions to avoid the jab in the meantime.
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This wording was later updated for the MHRA to recommend for anyone who has ever had an anaphylactic reaction to a food, medicine, or vaccine to avoid the jab, which was a "very rare" reaction among the public.
On Thursday, ahead of Pfizer receiving emergency use authorisation for its vaccine from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), several experts during an independent panel expressed concern about what these reports of allergic reactions could mean if the vaccine was rolled out.
Pfizer officials said they saw no serious allergic reactions among volunteers who received the vaccine in the company's clinical trials when speaking to the FDA's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee - an independent panel commissioned to discuss and vote on if they would support emergency use authorisation of Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine.
"Amongst the 44,000 subjects, we saw no serious allergic reactions to the vaccine," Dr William Gruber, senior vice president of vaccine clinical research and development at Pfizer, said.
"Within the clinical trial we've actually not seen evidence to suggest a signal related to allergic reaction to the vaccine," he added.
But Pfizer excluded from its clinical trial anyone who had a history of allergies such as ones related to adverse reactions associated with a vaccine.
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