A report has been released by the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association Stroke Council Leadership in response to the decision by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to lift the pauseon the administration of Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) COVID-19 vaccine. The report offers guidance on rare conditions associated with COVID-19 and the vaccines against it.

Lead author Karen L. Furie stated that the risk of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST) due to infection with COVID-19 is 8 to 10-fold higher than the risk of CVST after a COVID-19 vaccine. The new guidance, published online in Stroke, discusses the signs and symptoms of CVST and thrombosis-thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS), and of vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT). It recommends the best options for treating these conditions. Authors stated that no heparin products should be given for suspected CVST, TTS, or VITT… (Medscape)