Association Between Guillain-Barré Syndrome and COVID-19 Infection and Vaccination

Background and ObjectivesExisting data regarding occurrence of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) after coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection and vaccination are inconclusive. We aimed to assess the association between GBS and both severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection and COVID-19 vaccine.MethodsWe conducted a nested case-control study in a cohort of 3,193,951 patients aged 16 years or older, without a diagnosis of prior GBS, from the largest health care provider in Israel. Participants were followed from January 1, 2021, until June 30, 2022, for the occurrence of GBS. Ten randomly selected controls were matched to each case of GBS on age and sex. We assessed both SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 vaccine administration in the prior 6 weeks in cases and controls.ResultsOverall, 76 patients were diagnosed with GBS during follow-up and were matched to 760 controls. A positive test for SARS-CoV-2 was detected in 9 (11.8%) cases and 18 (2.4%) controls. An administration of COVID-19 vaccine was detected in 8 (10.5%) cases (all Pfizer-BioNTech [BNT162b2] vaccine) and 136 (17.9%) controls (134 Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine). Multivariable conditional logistic regression models showed that the odds ratio for GBS associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 vaccine administration was 6.30 (95% CI 2.55–15.56) and 0.41 (95% CI 0.17–0.96), respectively. The results were similar when exposure to SARS-CoV-2 infection or COVID-19 vaccine administration was ascertained in the prior 4 and 8 weeks, although did not reach statistical significance for COVID-19 vaccine at 4 weeks.DiscussionOur study suggests that SARS-CoV-2 infection is associated with increased risk of GBS, whereas Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is associated with decreased risk of GBS.