Coronavirus Hong Kong: BioNTech vaccine jabs should be on thigh to reduce heart inflammation risks, experts say

Pandemic advisers back changing injection site for German-made vaccine so the entry point is further away from the heart

Expert committee on vaccinations makes its first ‘indeterminate’ ruling on whether a death was linked to a coronavirus jab

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BioNTech jab recipients are better off being injected in the thigh rather than arm, experts say. Photo: Sam Tsang

Published: 9:30pm, 9 Dec 2021

Recipients of the BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine should get their jabs on the thigh rather than arm to reduce heart inflammation risks, Hong Kong health experts have said, after a panel delivered its first “indeterminate” ruling on whether a death was linked to the shot.

Advisers to the city’s pandemic strategy said on Thursday that changing the injection site would make the German-made jab safer for all age groups, with one urging the government to make it standard practice for adolescents.

The renewed calls emerged following a statement from the Department of Health on the death of a 66-year-old woman 16 days after receiving the BioNTech vaccine. A postmortem found that she had suffered from myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle.

“The causal relationship of that case with vaccination has been concluded to be indeterminate,” health authorities said in a separate press release, but added that “no unusual pattern” following the vaccination had so far been identified.

The authorities said more details of the case – as reviewed by the Expert Committee on Clinical Events Assessment Following Covid-19 Immunisation – would be disclosed on Friday when the department published its latest safety monitoring report on coronavirus vaccinations.

The expert committee has so far reviewed 49 deaths, all recorded within 14 days of Covid-19 vaccination. None of the fatalities were found to be related to the jabs, while another was still awaiting further information before final assessment.

Professor Ivan Hung Fan-ngai, co-convenor of the committee, told the Post that the panel could not rule out that the 66-year-old woman might have suffered from vaccine-related myocarditis. He added her condition might also be related to parvovirus, another viral infection that could lead to the same heart problems.

Hung said that to prevent vaccination-induced myocarditis, the jab should be administered into the thigh instead of the arm, for people of all ages.