Freddy Caldera, DO, on COVID-19 Immunizations for Patients With IBD

Dr Caldera discusses the safety of COVID-19 immunization for patients with IBD, and how to work with these patients to ensure they receive all the vaccinations they need.

Freddy Caldera, DO, MS, is a gastroenterologist at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

TRANSCRIPT:

Hello, I'm Dr. Freddy Caldera. I'm a gastroenterologist at University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. Today, I want to talk to you about vaccinating patients with IBD.

Obviously, many gastroenterology providers and clinicians, one of the main questions they're getting from their patients is when can I get my COVID shot? When will I get it? And what else can I do? All of these are great questions that we as providers need to make sure we educate our patients.

As far as when they can get it, the CDC has published guidance for all the states of who should get vaccines. Every state's department of health then has further discussions and might tweak the vaccine allocation, where most states are following vaccine allocation for healthcare providers, people living in assisted living, and then starting at age 75, 70, or 65.

Patients with IBD won't be in the front of the line right away, but if your patients have questions...Every state is making all these decisions publicly available, so definitely let them know to be on the lookout.

You can take this time to make sure you're educating your patients on the safety and efficacy of vaccines. Even though we don't have data of the efficacy and the safety in patients with IBD, everyone is recommending that they should get vaccinated.

One thing to consider is that there is the CDC recommendation that if you're going to get your COVID-19 vaccine, that you should wait 14 days in between getting another vaccine.

This is not because there's a perceived risk from getting two vaccines at the same time. Actually, coadministration of vaccines is something that has been studied. For example, the Shingrix vaccine and influenza vaccine have found to be safe to be coadministered, along with influenza pneumococcal vaccines.

The main reason this is not recommended now by the CDC is in case someone has an adverse event after one of their vaccines, whether it'd be their COVID and influenza, COVID and pneumococcal, we want to make sure that we know which one it is, so it doesn't delay someone getting their COVID booster.

Lastly, while we're taking the opportunity to educate our patients to get their COVID vaccine, we need to take the opportunity to make sure they're up to date with other vaccines. Making sure -- it's still influenza season -- if they haven't had their influence vaccine, to get that. Make sure they completed their pneumococcal vaccine series or their herpes zoster vaccine, if they're in the indicated age.

Thank you for listening and always feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions. Thanks again.