A Case Report of Prolonged Anaphylaxis after COVID-19 Vaccine

As the medical community and world have combatted the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, a significant advance was the development of a vaccine against the virus that has already claimed over 4.5 million lives worldwide. Vaccines manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna were the first two COVID-19 vaccines given emergency use authorization by the United States Food and Drug Administration. Preliminary data demonstrated not only the vaccines' efficacy rates of greater than 95% after a second dose, but also marked safety. Initial data showed only 21 cases of anaphylaxis of greater than 1.8 million doses administered. The majority of those patients had a history of anaphylaxis and presented within the first 15 minutes after administration of the vaccine.

We describe a patient who had an anaphylactic reaction to her second dose of the Pfizer BioNTech severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS CoV-2) vaccine with no prior history of allergic reactions or anaphylaxis. This reaction required multiple doses of epinephrine and a four-day hospitalization. We review both the available reports of anaphylaxis to the SAR CoV-2 vaccine and information on other prolonged cases of anaphylaxis.

Our case report is unique in that the patient, despite no prior history of anaphylaxis, had a prolonged course requiring a four-day hospitalization. To our knowledge this is one of the first case reports of prolonged anaphylaxis after the second dose of Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in a patient with no history of prior anaphylaxis.