From discussions in our expert webinar series and our recent patient survey, we know that the potential vaccine for Covid-19 is a topic of much conversation among our patient community. After a discussion at our recent trustee meeting, we wanted to share our knowledge with you. 

Unfortunately, the headline  is - we don’t yet know when a vaccine will be developed, and we don’t know if it will be safe for aplastic anaemia patients. Collecting the data to determine the answer to this question is likely to take some time. 

Through the team at King's, we have been in discussions with both our European aplastic anaemia colleagues and with colleagues in the  USA (including Dr Neal Young at NIH). 

In general, clinicians in general will avoid giving vaccinations to AA patients who have not been transplanted,unless they are strongly recommended. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, there is a danger that a vaccine will stimulate the immune system and cause a relapse of AA. Secondly, there are doubts about how effective vaccines can be in patients who are receiving immunity suppressants, like ATG or cyclosporin. 

For a future Covid-19 vaccine, we will need to know more about the specifics of the manufactured vaccination - and clinicians will have to take into account individual patient factors. 

Discussions about a future vaccine are ongoing globally. The AAT will keep you informed about this, and share information when we have it.

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Covid-19 vaccine for children with AA

The recommendations may look a little different for children with AA. At our live webinar on 20 August, The AAT asked consultant paediatric haematologist  Dr Sujith Samarasinghe about the potential for a Covid-19 vaccine and whether he expected to be recommending this for the children at Great Ormond Street Hospital. Here's what he told us:

You can watch all Dr Samarasinghe's answers from this event here.