Unilateral idiopathic neuroretinitis following Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine: a case report

Abstract

this article is available in open access under Creative Common attribution-Non-Commercial-No derivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-Nd 4.0) license, allowing to download articles and share them with others as long as they credit the authors and the publisher, but without permission to change them in any way or use them commercially IntroductIonSuccessive vaccination against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was a primary public health strategy during the COV-ID-19 pandemic. Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 (Pfizer), is the nationally approved and disseminated vaccine in New Zealand (NZ) [1]. This mRNA vaccine is provided as an intramuscular injection with two sequential doses required at a 3-4 week interval to achieve satisfactory immunogenicity [2]. Due to the relative infancy of Pfizer's commercial use, its ocular side effect profile is continuing to emerge, particularly from anecdotal accounts. This case re-port describes a temporal relationship of unilateral neuroretinitis following the second Pfizer vaccine, providing evidence for a potentially rare vaccine-related side effect. case presentatIonA 16-year-old male of Maori, Pacific Islander, and NZ European background presented to a regional ophthalmology service with a 12-day history of gradual vision loss in his left eye and pain on eye movement. A review of the systems was negative, with no constitutional symptoms. He had