LiverTox: Covid-19 Vaccines. [Updated 2021 Oct 28]

The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the cause of the pandemic of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) that was first detected in December 2019 in Wuhan, China and subsequently spread globally. By March 2020, COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic and within a year it accounted for more than 100 million cases and 2 million deaths. Also, within a year of its detection, vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 were developed using several methodologies including mRNA-, adenoviral vector- and recombinant DNA-technology. Several of these vaccines have been evaluated in large, placebo-controlled trials and found to be both safe and effective. Adverse events have been mild-to-moderate local reactions and transient systemic symptoms such as fatigue, nausea and headache. No hepatic specific adverse events have been described, although rare reports of thrombotic thrombocytopenia have occurred with the adenoviral based vaccines that sometimes involve portal or hepatic vein thromboses and some degree of liver dysfunction.