13 suffer facial paralysis after taking Covid vaccine in Israel

At least 13 people in Israel have suffered mild facial paralysis as a side-effect of post Covid-19 vaccination.

The actual number of people suffering such side effects could be higher than reported, according to the Health Ministry of the country.

"For at least 28 hours I walked around with it (facial paralysis)," one person told Ynet, one of the major Israeli news.

"I can't say it was completely gone afterwards, but other than that I had no other pains, except a minor pain where the injection was but there was nothing beyond that."

Experts are now apprehensive of giving the second dose of the shot to these people, even though the health ministry has insisted on giving the jab once the paralysis heals.

Israel began its Covid-19 vaccination drive on 20 December, 2020. About 72 per cent of those aged 60 and over have already been vaccinated.

In an similar incident which was reported last month, four volunteers who were given Pfizer vaccine shots during the trial stage had developed Bell's Palsy in the UK. Notably,

Bell's palsy is a medical condition that causes one half of the face to droop. This led to Britain's medicines regulator issuing a warning for people with "significant" history of allergic reactions to medicines, food or vaccines to not have the Pfizer/BioNTech jabs.

Recently, 23 elderly people died in Norway, shortly after receiving the Pfizer's mRNA-based coronavirus vaccine. The country launched a mass vaccination campaign at the end of December 2019, with the very oldest citizens and residents of nursing homes being offered vaccination first, including those over the age of 85.