A Case of Disseminated Herpes Zoster With Polyneuropathy Following the Third Dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine

Muhammad Riazuddin; Mona H Jefri; Muhammad I Butt; Hathami I Alsalamah; Aamir Nadeem M Ali Sheikh

doi:10.7759/cureus.33962

A Case of Disseminated Herpes Zoster With Polyneuropathy Following the Third Dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine

Cureus. 2023 Jan 19;15(1):e33962. doi: 10.7759/cureus.33962. eCollection 2023 Jan.

Authors

Muhammad Riazuddin¹, Mona H Jefri¹, Muhammad I Butt¹, Hathami I Alsalamah¹, Aamir Nadeem M Ali Sheikh¹

Affiliation

¹ Medicine, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre, Riyadh, SAU.

Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 pandemic resulted in the fast development of new vaccines, which helped contain the pandemic, but some adverse events started to rise. Recently, post-administration of mRNA-based vaccines, varicella-zoster virus (VZV) reactivation was reported. We report a case of disseminated herpes zoster with polyneuropathy and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) findings following the Pfizer-BioNTechvaccine. Our observation aims to increase clinicians' awareness of a possible relationship between herpes zoster reactivation and SARS-CoV-2 vaccines.

Keywords: disseminated herpes zoster; pfizer-biontech; sars-cov2 vaccines; vaccines; varicella zoster reactivation.

Publication types

Case Reports