COVID-19 Vaccination and Cancer: The Most Critical Issues

Abstract

The lives of people all over the world have been affected by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic since 2019. The virus originated in Wuhan City, China, and many people around the world are still infected with it daily, and many of them die. Following the prevalence of the virus, many countries were quarantined and came under economic, social, and medication pressure. As a result, various countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, China, and Iran, have begun to develop vaccines against SARS-COV-2 and have achieved great success. The Pfizer-BioNTech Comirnaty vaccine was the first vaccine against the virus that obtained World Health Organization (WHO) emergency use listing (EUL) on the last day of 2020 and promised hope for the people of the world. Clinical trials of the vaccines were not performed on all people including those with compromised immune systems such as cancer patients, or children under 12. Therefore, important questions arose: Are these vaccines available to everyone? Or do these vaccines protect everyone? As a result, studies were performed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the vaccines in specific groups of individuals such as cancer patients. This review article addresses some of the ambiguities surrounding the vaccination of cancer patients and suggestions for improving their condition