SINGAPORE, April 12 (Xinhua) -- Singapore researchers have found that the overall risk of heart inflammation following COVID-19 vaccinations is comparable to or lower than that caused by non-COVID-19 vaccinations, the Straits Times reported on Tuesday.
In a new study, which has been published in Lancet Respiratory Medicine, researchers looked at over 400 million vaccination doses in the international databases in order to compare the risk of myopericarditis, a condition that causes inflammation of the heart muscle, following vaccination against COVID-19 and other diseases such as influenza and smallpox.
They found that COVID-19 vaccinations caused 18 myopericarditis cases per million doses while the other vaccinations caused 56 cases per million doses, said the newspaper.
The study was conducted by researchers in Singapore, including Kollengode Ramanathan, a senior consultant from Singapore's National University Heart Center, Jyoti Somani and Dale Fisher from the division of infectious diseases at the National University Hospital.
"Our research suggests that the overall risk of myopericarditis appears to be no different for this newly approved group of vaccines against COVID-19, compared to vaccines against other diseases," said Ramanathan, adding that these findings should bolster public confidence in the safety of COVID-19 vaccinations.
