Efficacy and safety of the COVID-19 vaccine in patients over 18 years of age. Scoping Review.

Abstract

Abstract

Background: The ultra-rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines generated serious controversies in the evaluation of their effectiveness and safety, since given their “justified” emerging approval, these biological products were certified in record time.

General objective: to evaluate the efficacy and safety parameters of COVID-19 vaccines in patients over 18 years of age.

Methodology: exploratory systematic review-scoping review, without meta-analysis. Controlled Clinical Trials (RCTs), cohort studies and case-control studies were included, published since 2020, in english and spanish, carried out on people over 18 years of age, referenced in journals quartile 1 to 4 according to the Scimago portal. Descriptors in health sciences and in english medical subject headings were applied, “vaccine efficacy”, “safety”, “coronavirus disease 2019 virus vaccines”, “COVID-19 vaccine”. Boolean operators and, or and not were applied. The results will be presented in customized tables.

Results: COVID-19 vaccines are effective, especially in preventing complications. The results indicate the importance of booster doses. Regarding safety, it was assessed according to the frequency of adverse effects that vary between vaccines and studies. Thus, the frequency of pain at the injection site varies from 61% to 88% for AstraZeneca, while for Pfizer-BioNTech it is 71% for the first dose and 66% for the second dose. This analysis shows that, although all vaccines have adverse effects, most are mild and temporary. Serious adverse effects are rare.

Keywords: COVID-19 vaccine, virus, efficacy, safety, COVID-19.