Possible Relation between Coronavirus Infection or Vaccine and the Occurence of Spontaneous Spondylodiscitis

Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in-fection brought about tremendous changes in the world. It re-mains a challenge to the medical community, for it has been a constant uphill battle managing the myriad complications that occur as a result of this deadly virus infection. COVID-19 caus-es damage to the endothelium of vessels in the lung, giving rise to its pulmonary complications. Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease. It affects almost all organs of the human body. Spondylodiscitis is an infection of the vertebral body and disc. The association of COVID-19 or COVID-19 vaccine with Spondylodiscitis has not been reported in the literature so far. The purpose of this study is to describe a series of fifty cases of spontaneous spondylodiscitis and to describe its association with COVID-19 infection or vaccination. Aim of Study: The paper aims to determine any possible relation between the occurrence of spontaneous spondylodis-citis and previous or current infection by COVID virus or the reception of its vaccine. Patients and Methods: This study was carried on 36 pa-tients having adult sponteneous spondylodiscitis (proven clin-ically and radiologically) and we described its possible rela-tion with COVID-19 infection or vaccination. Some patients received antibiotics for management of the infection, non re-sponding patients or those with progressive neurological defi-cits, spinal instability or deformity where again managed sur-gically. The possible tissues or discharge where biopsied for culture to know the causative organism. Results: 22 (61%) patient received COVID-19 vaccine (21 patients received Sinovac and one patient received Pfizer) be-fore symptoms of spondylodiscitis by mean duration of 93 day SD-/+35 day, all of them experienced confirmed COVID-19 infection before symptom development by mean of 255 day SD =/-93 day, showing significant difference of time span be-tween COVID-19 infection and development of spondylodis-citis against time span between Vaccination and development of spondylodiscitis (p 0.03). The remaining 14 patients, 9 of them experienced COVID-19 infection before spondylodiscitis symptoms by mean of 241 day +/-89 day, 5 patients did not experience COVID-19 infection or received vaccination. Conclusion: COVID-19 infection is a predisposing factor for spondylodiscitis in many studies, yet in our study much shorter temporal relationship between COVID-19 vaccination and development of spondylodiscitis was noted and needs fur-ther research work up.