A 27-year-old male resident of Macau has been reportedly diagnosed with facial nerve paralysis, known as Bell’s palsy, after being inoculated with a vaccine against Covid-19, the Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Center reported in a press statement.
According to the same statement, the center acknowledged that the health condition occurred after the vaccine and, according to the rules established by the World Health Organization, the case has been recorded as the second serious case of adverse event following immunization (AEFI) in Macau.
The center explained that the man was inoculated with a dose of the mRNA vaccine manufactured by BioNTech after a medical evaluation at the Conde de São Januário Hospital Center (CHCSJ) on March 20. On the evening of April 10, the man manifested symptoms, including a headache, and on the afternoon of April 14, he displayed an asymmetry between the right and left sides of his face.
After visiting the Kiang Wu Hospital for consultation, the man was admitted to the hospital’s neurology department with the diagnosis of Bell’s palsy on the left side of his face.
On April 15, the man was discharged from the hospital after receiving a steroid treatment that aimed to reduce the symptoms, which included difficulty in closing the left eyelid, tearing in the left eye, and facial numbness, among others.
According to the center, the patient’s health condition has improved slightly although all the symptoms persist.
The health authorities noted that the “serious adverse event has already been reported to the Adverse Events Assessment Working Group after the inoculation of the vaccines against Covid-19 for analysis.”
The same authorities also said that the causes of Bell’s palsy are still unknown by the medical community, adding that “most patients begin to recover the facial nerves affected within two weeks from the onset of symptoms and regain normalcy within three to six months.”
According to the Health Bureau’s records, in the last five years, there have been 55 to 61 Bell’s palsy patients per 100,000 people in the three hospitals – CHCSJ, Kiang Wu, and Hospital of the Macau University of Science and Technology. They added that the current average rate in Macau is 4.5 to 5.1 per 100,000 people per month.
Citing the statistical data, the health authorities concluded that the Covid-19 vaccination is not contributing to a rise in the incidence rate of Bell’s palsy in Macau, reaffirming that although the case needs to be reported as an AEFI, there is no certainty of a cause-effect relationship between the vaccine and the adverse event.
“Until experts can determine the relationship between the event and the vaccine, it is not possible to judge hastily that the event was caused by the vaccine. On the other hand, with the introduction of the vaccine to the market, a monitoring system will be created for observation,” the center said.
Statistics on the AEFI reported by the health authorities noted that this was the second severe case of AEFI in Macau, from a total of 333 cases reported.
The same statistics show that, on average, there has been around 10 new AEFI cases in Macau recorded per day.
The latest data shows that there were 81,893 inoculations concluded, involving 52,688 people. The number of vaccinations concluded after two doses is now around 29,205.
Quarantine raised to 28 days for arrivals from high-risk countries
In response to the current Covid-19 situation in the Philippines, India, and Pakistan, the Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Center has raised the quarantine measures for those arriving in Macau from those countries to 28 days, the center informed in a statement. From midnight today, all people arriving from the aforementioned destinations will have to undergo 28 days of medical observation in isolation at a government-designated hotel facility. The center also noted that after the completion of the medical observation, people arriving from such destinations will no longer need to undergo self-isolation for another seven days.
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