A patient who had received the Johnson & Johnson covid-19 vaccine has died after developing Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) and a prolonged hospital stay. To protect patient confidentiality, and because it is such a rare disease, Professor Hannelie Meyer from the National Immunisation Safety Committee said no patient details, not even the province where the death occurred, will be made public.
She has confirmed that they have positively linked the cause of death to the vaccine. “It is a very rare event,” she said. “The person presented with the symptoms shortly after vaccination and this had led to prolonged hospitalisation, mechanical ventilation and further infections.” GBS has been identified before as a possible side-effect of the vaccine. It has also been identified as a post-infection complication of covid-19.
On 13 July, the American Food and Drug Administration revised its fact sheets for the J&J covid-19 vaccine to include information pertaining to an observed increased risk of GBS following vaccination. At the time there were about 100 preliminary reports of GBS in the US related to 12.5 million doses of the J&J vaccine. Of these, 95 were serious and required hospital admission. There was one reported death.