Inactivated COVID-19 vaccine induced acute stroke-like focal neurologic symptoms: a case series

BACKGROUND: A subgroup of individuals experienced stroke-like symptoms after receiving an inactivated COVID-19 vaccine. We present clinical characteristics, neuroimaging, and outcome of these patients. METHODS: Medical personals who had neurological symptoms after receiving inactivated COVID-19 vaccine were enrolled. Clinical, laboratory investigation and neuroimaging were collected. Subjects were prospectively followed-up on clinical and neuroimaging to detect brain parenchymal or cerebrovascular abnormality. RESULTS: Nineteen out of 385 subjects (4.9%) developed neurological symptoms after vaccination. There was a female predominance (89.5%) with mean age of 34 ± 7.5 years. Majority of patients (52.6%) had symptoms within 60 min after vaccination. The most common neurological symptoms were numbness (94.7%) followed by headache (52.6%) and weakness (47.4%). The most common neurological signs were sensory deficit (79%) followed by motor weakness (52.6%) and tongue deviation (26.3%). Recurrent headache was observed in most patients (89.5%) during followed up. Serial brain imaging was done in all patients with median follow-up interval of 18 days. There was no evidence of acute brain infarction in any of the patients, 84.2% had no vascular abnormality, 15.8% had transient focal narrowing of cerebral vessels. Outcome was favorable, modified ranking scale 0–1 for all patients at 4 weeks after vaccination. CONCLUSIONS: Transient focal neurological symptoms and deficits can be found after COVID-19 vaccination. However, benefit to stop COVID-19 pandemic by vaccination is outweighed by these seemingly reversible side effects. The pathophysiology underlined these phenomena should be further investigated. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12883-022-02739-6.