The US Food and Drug Administration has warned that Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose Covid-19 vaccine can cause Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare disorder where the immune system attacks the nervous system and can result in paralysis.
Guillain-Barre has been detected (read fact-sheet below) in about 100 people who had recently received Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 jabs, and the FDA said on Monday that 95 of those cases required hospitalization.
One vaccine recipient died from the disorder, the agency said, without providing details.
Many of the patients were men aged 50 and older, and symptoms developed in most of the cases within six weeks after they were vaccinated against Covid-19, according to the CDC.
The drugmaker issued a statement saying it strongly supports “raising awareness” of the “signs and symptoms of rare events” to ensure they can be quickly identified and properly treated.
The risk of contracting Guillain-Barre after receivi...