With the rapid spread of the SARS-COV2 virus, the government of Singapore is pushing for mass vaccination.
During the last 2 months, we have been seeing an increasing number of patients with arthritis flares after the Pfizer BioTech COVID-19 vaccine. Vaccine-induced arthritis is part of the ASIA syndrome.
We report our experience with 22 patients who developed arthritis flares after the COVID-19 vaccination.
We collated all our patients who developed inflammatory arthritis after COVID-19 vaccination from March to May 2021.
The patients were selected if they developed arthritis after the first or second dose of the vaccine within 4 weeks of the dosing, and the patients had no previous arthritis history or were in remission or stable disease for at least 3 months prior to receiving the COVID-19 vaccination.
Racial distribution: 18 Chinese, 2 Indian, 1 Filipino 1 British..
Age ranged from 45-85 years, mean age of 59 years.
Diagnosis: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) flare – 10, Osteoarthritis flare – 5, Gouty arthritis flare -4, Pseudogout flare - 1 De novo oligoarthritis – 2.
Flare Characteristics::Mild – 4, Moderate – 12, Severe – 6
Monoarticular – 12 Oligoarticular – 4 Polyarticular – 4
Flare after 1st dose: 10 Flare after 2nd dose: 10 Recurrent Flare after Both doses: 2
Time to Onset of flares: 1- 27 days.
With widespread COVID-19 vaccination, ours is the largest series of series of post-vaccination rthritis flares. The BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine seems to reprogram both the body’s adaptative and innate immune responses, More observational studies are needed.