Adverse health events experienced by the recipients of COVID-19 vaccines and the associated factors in southwestern Saudi Arabia

Aims@#Studying the post-vaccination adverse health events is crucial to determine the confidence and acceptance of the public to the newly-developed COVID-19 vaccines. The present study aimed to investigate the prevalence rates of the adverse health events experienced by the recipients of COVID-19 vaccines in Saudi Arabia.@*Methodology and results@#A cross-sectional study was conducted in October 2021 using a google form of an online self-administered questionnaire sent via different social media platforms for recruiting participants from southwestern Saudi Arabia. The questionnaire was prepared by medical and public health professionals and then translated into Arabic, pilot-studied and validated. Among the 453 Saudi adults who participated in the study with at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, about (77.9%) were males aged 25.5 ± 10.6 years. Most of the participants were college students living in the Makkah region. Nearly 68.3% reported post-vaccination adverse events, such as injection site pain/swelling (91.9%), fatigue (67.9%), bone and muscle pain (65.2%) and flu-like symptoms (58%). The type of vaccine was significantly associated with the development of adverse events p=0.002 (OR of Pfizer-BioNTech versus AstraZeneca: 0.33, 95% CI: 0.18-0.61). Additionally, ageing of more than the 3rd decade, male gender and being married were significantly associated with lower rates of reporting post-vaccination adverse events. @*Conclusion, significance and impact of study@#The development of COVID-19 vaccine-related adverse health events had no significant associations with residence, education, occupation, BMI, chronic diseases or smoking. However, age, gender, marital state and vaccine type may be considered significant predictors for developing post-vaccination adverse reactions.

Follow up for brucellosis patients; clinical, serological and blood culture assessment

Brucellosis is a zoonotic disease that has a worldwide distribution, and it remains as a major source of disease for both humans and domestics animals particularly in the Mediterranean region

Study hypothesis: one of the main characteristics of brucellosis is its marked tendency to relapse in spite of proper management. Since almost 90% of the relapses occur during the first 6 months following conclusion of treatment, strict follow up is necessary during this period in order to detect any relapses as soon as possible and to provide adequate therapy

Aim of the study: evaluation of the impact of continued occupational exposure of the already diagnosed Brucella cases

Subject and method: in our study we followed up 66 Brucella sero-positive workers from El-Minia slaughterhouses during their first 12 months post treatment. The study showed a high suspicion of relapse or re-infection in nearly one third of cases [20 cases]. Further work up was done for those cases to document the exact active brucellosis in general clinical practice

Result: our finding confirmed that programs for post treatment follow up of patients with brucellosis should include the appropriate clinical examination together with blood culture and serological tests. The high index of suspicion for relapse based on clinical examination was further confirmed to be positive on serological testing and by PCR assays, which indicated positive active brucellosis in 8 cases out of these suspicious twenty cases. However, blood cultures failed to prove brucellosis in three cases out of these cases diagnosed by PCR

Recommendation: we recommend that proper treatment of brucellosis must be followed by post treatment continuous follow up for at least one year as a preventive measure for relapses