There are some challenges and concerns about vaccination safety in inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) patients. Since there is a paucity of evidence in this subject, in this study we aimed to investigate the safety of anti-SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in IBD patients compared to healthy controls.

Telephone or in-person interviews were conducted from September to December 2021 to report local or systemic adverse events related to the anti-SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in 86 patients with IBD and 91 healthy subjects.

About 69% of the participants reported at least one adverse effect following the first (24%) or second doses (74%) vaccination against COVID-19. Local pain at the injection site, fatigue, headache, and fever were the most common adverse effects in both IBD and healthy groups. All the adverse effects were mild and lasted only a few days. The prevalence of pain at the injection site, myalgia, flu-like symptoms, headache, fever, and tenesmus were significantly higher in the healthy control group compare with the IBD patients (p<0.05).

This study demonstrated that the vaccine side effects in IBD patients are not noteworthy. Hence, patients with inflammatory bowel diseases (both UC and CD) should be vaccinated against COVID-19 without much concern.