A new study says COVID-19 vaccination is not associated with a heart attack risk

The risk of dying due to the occurrence of an acute myocardial infarction (AMI) also known as a heart attack was lower in vaccinated individuals, according to a recent Delhi-based study conducted in GB Pant Hospital.

This study negated concerns that vaccines impacted cardiovascular health, citing previous research that said the adverse effects of COVID-19 vaccines have mostly been ‘mild, transient, and self-limiting.’

The observational study was conducted among 1,578 patients with AMI enrolled in the North India ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction (NORIN-STEMI) registry, 80 per cent of whom were males with an average age of 55.

During the pandemic, vaccines were developed in a shorter time frame under the “Emergency Use Authorization”. However, they still had high efficacy and safety, the study ascertained, while concerns regarding their side effects have always remained.

According to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, 2.2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines (Covishield: 79.3 per cent; Covaxin: 16.5 per cent) had been administered till January 2023 within a span of two years.

For this study, 1,086 patients were vaccinated against COVID-19 (1,047 had received two doses of the vaccine and 39 had received only a single dose) and 492 subjects were unvaccinated.

The majority of the patients (1,002) had been vaccinated with Covishield (Serum Institute of India Ltd, India), and the rest of the 84 with Covaxin (Bharat Biotech Ltd, India).

All enrolled subjects were followed for a period of six months, during which time 276 (12.7 per cent) died after hospital admission. Of them, 148 (53.6 per cent) were vaccinated with either dose while 128 (46.4 per cent) were non-vaccinated.

“Findings of our study showed that the 30-day and six-month all-cause mortality risk was significantly lower in the vaccinated subjects as compared to the unvaccinated population,” the study led by Dr Mohit D Gupta, professor of cardiology and interventional cardiologist at GB Pant Hospital said.

“Additionally, male patients with AMI had a lower likelihood of mortality within six months as compared to females,” the researchers added.

“On the other hand, increasing age, diabetes, hypertension, and smoking increased the odds of six months mortality. A lower risk of six months mortality in vaccinated AMI patients was observed in all the subgroups, albeit some of the factors did not reach statistical significance,” the researchers explained.

Moreover, a lack of clustering or aggregation of a particular health condition was observed with regard to heart health in this study.

Generally, COVID-19 infection has been linked with some consequences on the heart. Some complications include acute coronary syndrome (ACS), myocarditis, and heart failure. Patients with cardiovascular disease risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes, and dyslipidemia are at an increased risk of infection as well as adverse outcomes, a 2020 study based out of Jaipur said.

Limited data exists regarding the involvement of the cardiovascular system in COVID-19 patients.

Viral infections such as influenza have been shown to increase the predisposition for cardiovascular events. This has been attributed to a heightened systemic inflammatory response following infection leading to plaque rupture, the researchers said.

The exact mechanism regarding the beneficial effects of COVID-19 vaccination in the reduction of major adverse cardiac events is unknown.

The present study also showed a reduction in all-cause mortality among vaccinated patients suffering from heart disease.

Most importantly, these findings have certain limitations, the major one being that the participants belonged to a single centre. They need further investigation with a larger cohort and different ethnicities.

“In our study, only all-cause mortality was evaluated on follow-up which is also one of the limitations. All-cause mortality is a hard endpoint and we have tried to adjust all the possible confounders in our analysis. In this study during COVID times, it was extremely challenging to collect data of all possible outcomes in a resource-limited country like India,” the researchers emphasised.

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