Active Post-Licensure Safety Surveillance for Recombinant Zoster Vaccine Using Electronic Health Record Data

Am J Epidemiol. 2022 Oct 4:kwac170. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwac170. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTRecombinant zoster vaccine (RZV) (Shingrix; GlaxoSmithKline, Brentford, United Kingdom) is an adjuvanted glycoprotein vaccine that was licensed in 2017 to prevent herpes zoster and its complications in older adults. In this prospective, post-licensure Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) study using electronic health records, we sequentially monitored a real-world population of adults aged 50 years and older who received care at multiple VSD health systems in the United States to identify potential increased risks of 10 pre-specified priority outcomes, including stroke, anaphylaxis, and Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS). Among 647,833 RZV doses administered from January 2018 through December 2019, we did not detect a sustained increased risk of any monitored outcome for RZV recipients relative either to historical (2013-2017) recipients of Zoster Vaccine Live (ZVL), a live-attenuated virus vaccine (Zostavax; Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, New Jersey), or contemporary non-RZV vaccinated persons who had an annual well-visit during the 2018-2019 study period. We confirmed pre-licensure trial findings of increased risks of systemic and local reactions following RZV. Our study provides additional reassurance about the overall safety of RZV. Despite a large sample, uncertainty remains regarding potential associations with GBS due to the limited number of confirmed GBS cases that were observed.PMID...
Source: Am J Epidemiol - Category: Epidemiology Authors: Source Type: research