COVID-19 is 7 times more dangerous for myocarditis than vaccine: study

Deaths on the rise in Ontario and Nova Scotia Dr. Dale Kalina speaks about the challenges of rising cases and what to make of the new immune-evasive subvariant.

A new study has found that the risk of myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle, is seven times higher with a COVID-19 infection than with the vaccine to protect against the disease.

Myocarditis patients may experience chest pain, breathlessness, or an irregular pulse. When inflammation is extreme, it can cause heart failure and even death.

One of COVID-19’s complications includes myocarditis. The mRNA COVID-19 vaccine has previously been linked to heart problems, such as myocarditis in adolescent boys, even though immunizations have been demonstrated to lessen severe COVID-19 symptoms. Large studies, however, have not adequately assessed the relative risk of myocarditis related to infections and vaccinations.

The study, which was conducted by Pennsylvania State College of Medicine and published on Aug. 29 in the journal Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine, assessed and analyzed 22 global COVID-19 studies published between December 2019 and May 2022.

The studies included nearly 58 million patients with cardiac complications who belonged to one of two groups: the 2.5 million who contracted the virus compared to those who did not contract the virus, and the 55.5 million who received the COVID-19 vaccination in comparison to those who did not.

“Our findings show that the risk of myocarditis from being infected by COVID-19 is far greater than from getting the vaccine,” Navya Voleti, a co-author of the study said in a release.

“Moving forward, it will be important to monitor the potential long-term effects in those who develop myocarditis.”

The patients with COVID-19, both vaccinated and unvaccinated, were compared to those without the virus by the researchers. Regardless of immunization status, they discovered that COVID-19 patients had a 15-fold higher risk of myocarditis than people who did not catch the virus.

The rates of myocarditis in those who received the immunizations and those in unprotected persons were then independently compared by the researchers. Findings show that myocarditis rates among those who received the COVID-19 vaccine were only two times higher than those of uninfected individuals.

Based on these findings, the researchers concluded that the risk of myocarditis associated with COVID-19 was seven times greater than the risk associated with vaccinations.

The majority (61 per cent) of people who were diagnosed with myocarditis after receiving the vaccine or having COVID-19 were men, the researchers also found. In both the COVID-19 and vaccine groups, 1.07 percent of patients with myocarditis required hospitalization, and 0.01 percent died.

“COVID-19 infection and the related vaccines both pose a risk for myocarditis. However, the relative risk of heart inflammation induced by COVID-19 infection is substantially greater than the risk posed by the vaccines,” Paddy Ssentongo, a co-author of the study said in a release.

“We hope our findings will help mitigate vaccine hesitancy and increase vaccine uptake.”