Boston health-care worker suffers the first known reaction to the Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine

 A Boston health-care worker developed severe allergic reactions to the coronavirus vaccine developed by Cambridge biotech company-Moderna. He is the first person on record to experience allergic reactions to the Moderna vaccine, which was approved by the US government to be administered to its citizens in a move known as “Operation warp-speed”. Healthcare workers were at the top of the list of people to be vaccinated. 

 Boston health-care worker reaction to the vaccine similar to his shellfish allergy

 The incident happened on Thursday, in its first week of rollout. The healthcare worker involved—Dr. Hossein Sadrzadeh, a geriatric oncologist at the Boston medical center said in an interview with the CNN that he experienced a severe reaction almost immediately after he was administered the vaccine shot. He said his body’s reaction to the vaccine was similar to his reaction to shellfish.

 “After I got the vaccine, I felt tachycardic, but I felt like it was probably anxiety because I was scared after learning about Pfizer’s reactions in the US, especially with those people who have shellfish allergies, like me. ‘My heart rate was 150, my normal heart rate is 75 but … six, seven minutes after the injection of the vaccine, I felt in my tongue and also my throat having, like, some weird sensation of tingling and numbness, the same reaction that I had before to my shellfish allergy,’ Dr. Hossein Sadrzadeh explained to CNN.

 Response by the government to growing concerns

 There have been other reports of people experiencing anaphylaxis after receiving the Pfizer-BionNTech vaccine in Britain and America. The two vaccines contain similar ingredients, which have led officials with the Food and Drug administration, and the centers for disease control and prevention to speculate about the possible ingredients responsible for the allergic reaction. 

 Dr. Peter Marks, head of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said that the agency was investigating a compound known as polyethylene glycol (PEG), as well as four other possible ingredients in the formulation.