Covid vaccine and blood cancer

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Page last updated 17 May 2024

Throughout the pandemic, we have continued to learn about the effectiveness of covid vaccines for people with different types of blood cancer.

Early in the pandemic, Blood Cancer UK campaigned to incresase awareness that vaccines can be less effective in people with blood cancer. This is because blood cancer affects the immune system, and some vaccines rely on the immune system to work.

We invested £2 million in covid vaccine research, covering all major blood cancer types. We needed to understand whether covid vaccines were protecting people with blood cancer and how well they were working for our community.

As more people with blood cancer were given more covid vaccines and boosters, we saw immunity to covid rise. The latest evidence continues to show that covid vaccines are safe and effective for people with blood cancer. They are also highly important, as people with blood cancer are at higher risk of severe illness and death from covid, and the vaccines have been proven to drastically reduce this risk.

Find out more about getting the covid vaccines you are eligible for.

We are aware of various unproven claims that are circulating about links between covid vaccines and cancer. Claims that covid vaccines can cause cancer or make cancer come back are not supported by the latest and most robust scientific evidence. Often, these claims will be based on a single case, or a very small number of cases.

These claims are dangerous if they lead to people making health decisions based on information that they believe is well-evidenced when the evidence is actually weak or sometimes non-existent.

The most reliable forms of evidence are things like meta-analysis, systematic reviews, national guidelines and large randomized controlled trials. They include large sets of data, and analyse results across multiple other pieces of research. The lowest quality evidence sources include personal experiences of individual patients and non-analytic studies like case series or individual case studies. They involve tiny numbers of people.

Getting vaccinated against covid is a personal decision, but everyone should have access to the best available evidence when making that decision. On this page, we tell you what the latest and best quality evidence says, including both the benefits and the side effects of covid vaccines.

Blood Cancer UK funded this study investigating the effectiveness of covid vaccines in preventing hospitalisation and death, as well as potential side effects, in people living with blood cancer.

The researchers analysed data from QResearch, a multi-million-person health record database, to compare outcomes for people with blood cancer to those of the general population. This study looked at 12,274,948 individuals, of whom 81,793 had blood cancer. This research was conducted when only 4 vaccine doses had been offered. The study found:

Covid vaccines were highly effective against death from covid-19 for people with blood cancer, offering protection similar to the general population:

• After the first dose, people with blood cancer peaked at 91% protection compared with 87% in the general population.
• After the second dose, people with blood cancer peaked at 92% protection compared with 93% in the general population.
• After the third dose, people with blood cancer peaked at 89% proection compared with 94% in the general population.

Covid vaccines were less effective at preventing hospitalisation in people with blood cancer compared with the general population, but they did still prevent hospitalisation:

• After the first dose, people with blood cancer peaked at 48% protection compared with 68% in the general population.
• After the second dose, people with blood cancer peaked at 72% protection compared with 82% in the general population.
• After the third dose, people with blood cancer peaked at 64% protection compared with 80% in the general population.

Covid vaccines are safe for people with blood cancer:

• The study found no evidence that people with blood cancer were at increased risk of side effects after vaccination compared with the general population.

This study shows that coninuing to have booster doses of covid vaccines is important for people with blood cancer to maintain their immunity. Although the vaccines were less effective at preventing hospitalisation in people with blood cancer compared with the general population, they did still prevent hospitalisation in a large number of people. The study also shows that covid vaccines are highly effective at preventing the worst outcomes from covid.

Source: Effectiveness and safety of COVID-19 vaccination in people with blood cancer.

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You might find our section on coping with risk of covid helpful. It talks about coping with uncertainty and feeling vulnerable.

Or call our free and confidential support line on 0808 2080 888. You can also send us a message if you prefer.

You can talk to other people with blood cancer on our Online Community Forum.

You can also find out what's helping other people affected by blood cancer through coronavirus and beyond in our pages on living well with or after blood cancer.