Most of the vaccinated are fine. The message is important to Health Minister Klaus Holetschek. “We have administered 29 million corona vaccinations in Bavaria. So far, there have been 79 recognized vaccination damages,” said the minister. So damage is rare, but there are such cases. The Minister believes that those affected need help. Many do not yet know who to turn to, especially since there is a lot of misinformation on the Internet.
This Monday, a telephone hotline on the subject of “post-vac syndrome” was launched in Bavaria, initiated by the Ministry and operated by the State Office for Health and Food Safety. Anyone who suspects that a corona vaccination has made them ill can find out more about the so-called post-vac syndrome from Monday to Friday mornings and also on Thursday afternoons on 09131 6808 7878.
Vaccinations protect against dangerous diseases. But they always carry a risk. In rare cases, Astra Zeneca vaccinations have led to cerebral vein thrombosis. Corona vaccinations with the mRNA vaccine from Biontech and Moderna have occasionally resulted in heart muscle inflammation. However, the viral disease itself also leads to heart muscle inflammation and this then often progresses worse, as a study from Scandinavia showed.
The post-vac syndrome, which the hotline is now supposed to clarify, also describes extremely rare cases in which people suffer from post-Covid-like symptoms after a vaccination. This includes chronic fatigue syndrome. Patients can have completely different complaints – the symptoms range from headaches, insomnia, heart palpitations, stomach ache to dizziness. What they have in common, however, is that their condition often deteriorates with the slightest exertion.
The difficulty: there is still no scientific definition of the disease
A generally accepted scientific definition of post-vac syndrome does not yet exist. Herein lies the difficulty of the hotline. The minister wants to give people “help and information”. But it is precisely these that are only just being compiled in science, says Bernhard Schieffer, who heads an interdisciplinary post-Covid and post-vac outpatient clinic at the University Hospital in Marburg. They have hundreds of post-vac syndrome inquiries there every day. They can hardly keep up. Together with other scientists, he will have one at the end of March first classification of post-covid and post-vac im medical journal published, which was downloaded thousands of times within hours. The need for information and the uncertainty among doctors is still huge.
Schieffer finds it important to listen to people who have such suspicions. “The subject has been hushed up for too long.” The hotline is also “in principle an extremely well-intentioned action”. Only: “Who is supposed to provide information?” he asks. That would have to be a scientific task force. Otherwise hotline employees could only refer to the family doctor or the nearest post-Covid ambulance, An overview of this can already be found on the homepage of the Ministry of Health.
The minister also knows that there are still many unanswered questions on the subject of post-vac syndrome. “There is still a great need for research here,” he said. The health ministers have therefore asked the federal government to intensify research and provide more funding. It is important to note that post-vac should not be equated with vaccination damage. Even short-term vaccination reactions such as pain at the injection site must be differentiated from post-vac syndrome. The variable clinical picture makes classification difficult. This does not make it easier for those affected to find reliable information.
If the authorities actually determine serious damage after a Covid vaccination, those affected are entitled to a pension from the state. According to SZ research, 6,682 applications for recognition of vaccination damage from a corona vaccination were received nationwide by mid-March – the majority of them with 1,617 applications in Bavaria. 285 applications were approved nationwide, 2075 rejected, the rest is still in the review process or was no longer pursued by the applicants themselves. Recognized harms included, for example, heart problems and neurological damage. Some of those affected also sue in court against the manufacturer of the vaccine for pain and suffering or damages. In order to win here, however, they have to prove that they were not sufficiently informed about the risks that were already known at the time of the vaccination.