Can material from COVID-19 vaccines spread from person to person by inhalation or skin contact?
COVID-19 vaccines cannot spread among people.
Social media posts claiming people can spread the vaccine are misinterpreting a COVID-19 clinical trial protocol document from vaccine developer Pfizer.
The document, from early trials that excluded pregnant women, says vaccine exposures during pregnancy should be reported. The document defined such cases broadly to include exposures “by inhalation or skin contact.”
Dr. Shobha Swaminathan, an associate professor of medicine at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, said that language is “generic” for such documents.
That language can be relevant to other vaccines, including some that contain live viruses, said Dr. Justin Brandt, an assistant professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine doesn’t contain live virus.
The vaccine “can only enter the human body through an administered dose,” Pfizer spokesperson Jerica Pitts told AP.