Doctors have revealed an extremely rare case that saw the Covid vaccine reawaken a deadly virus inside a man’s body.
The unnamed 47-year-old had been living with a dormant tuberculosis infection that was not causing symptoms when he received his booster shot in India.
Five days after vaccination he he began experiencing ‘severe constitutional symptoms’ including fever, fatigue and night sweats.
Doctors discovered that his immune system, now stronger from the vaccine, started attacking the TB infection too aggressively, causing inflammation and the flare-up of symptoms.
He was diagnosed with tuberculosis immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (TB-IRIS), marking the first known case linked to a Covid booster.
He was treated with high dose steroids that helped control the immune system’s overreaction, and he gradually stopped using them over several weeks as he recovered.
Tuberculosis replaced Covid to become the top cause for infectious disease-related deaths in 2023 and has been the number one killer since.
Around 8million people are diagnosed globally each year and more than a million die.
Doctors believe a third Covid booster shot worsened the man’s TB symptoms, triggering high fevers, chills, and excessive sweating (stock image)
The unidentified patient had first visited doctors because of pain in his hands and fingers.
Based on symptoms and lab testing, doctors diagnosed him with rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease that causes inflammation, pain and stiffness in the joints.
Before starting the man on treatment, he undergone a routine chest X-ray to check for any lung conditions and had a TB test, which was negative.
His physicians prescribed him two common medications to treat his arthritis, according to his case study published in the Journal of Medical Case Reports.
Sometime after beginning his medications, doctors do not specify when, the man received two dozes of the Pfizer Covid vaccine four weeks apart.
Then, six months after starting treatment for his arthritis, he began experiencing headaches, night sweats, and fevers, as well as swollen lymph nodes in his neck.
The man complained of neck pain and underwent a CT scan, which revealed inflamed lymph nodes on both sides of his neck.
Doctors immediately stopped his medications and took a biopsy of the lymph nodes.
He was then diagnosed with tuberculosis, the world’s deadliest infectious disease.
Within five days of following his four-drug treatment plan, his symptoms improved.
But two weeks later, he received a third Covid booster shot and shortly after, his TB symptoms returned worse than before, with more severe chills, higher fevers, and excessive sweating.
Doctors said in the case report: ‘We strongly suspect that the immune response precipitated by the mRNA booster vaccine may have resulted in the development of the IRIS syndrome in this patient.’
TB-IRIS occurs when a weakened immune system, after being reactivated by a vaccine, overreacts to infection and struggles to differentiate between foreign invaders and the body’s own tissues.
This response can cause excessive inflammation, complicating the treatment of TB.
Doctors treated him with steroids to reduce the inflammation in his lymph nodes. The medications reduced his symptoms over three months, and he was on TB drugs for over a year before his symptoms finally subsided.
A CT scan of the neck confirmed swollen lymph nodes on both sides, indicated by the blue arrows
The doctors added: ‘There are several reports of mRNA vaccine causing autoimmune disease or flare ups of autoimmune disease.’
The mRNA in the Covid vaccine carries genetic instructions to cells in the body, teaching them how to produce a spike protein similar to the one on the surface of the coronavirus.
In this case, doctors believe the mRNA woke up the weakened immune system and triggered the over-active response, which worsened the patient’s TB symptoms and caused what they called an ‘uncontrolled’ level of inflammation.
TB-IRIS can be challenging to diagnose because symptoms mirror those of a rebound TB infection – fever, swollen lymph nodes, and joint pain.
There is no universally agreed-upon treatment for it, either. Some evidence has shown steroids to be effective. Doctors administered IV methylprednisolone for five days and transitioned him to a pill version that he took for three months.
He took TB medication for another year, and by his 18-month follow-up, his symptoms had dissipated. He was then able to go back on his arthritis medicines.
TB can range from mild to severe. In immunocompromised people, the body cannot contain the TB-causing bacteria and they experience more severe symptoms.
Vaccines are generally highly effective at preventing severe illness from viral infections, but those that rely on mRNA have been known to cause inflammation in some cases.
The Covid vaccines have been tied to cases of myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) and pericarditis (inflammation of the lining around the heart) in young men.
