Background: Guillain barre syndrome(GBS) has been recently associated with COVID-19 disease. Usually, GBS cases are associated with immune stimulation and reported after taking different vaccines, however, there is no confirmed evidence that this is a causal association. In this systematic review, we are investigating cases of GBS that have been reported following the COVID-19 vaccination.

Methods: Based on PRISMA guidelines, we searched five databases (PubMed, Google Scholar, Ovid, Web of Science, and Scopus databases) for studies on COVID-19 vaccination and GBS on August 7, 2021. To conduct our analysis, we divided the GBS variants into two groups acute inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy and non-acute inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (AIDP and non-AIDP) and compared the two groups with mEGOS and other clinical presentation

Results: The systematic review resulted in 129 cases included in 15 studies. Of the 15 studies, 14 studies had 29 cases. Ten of 29 were of the AIDP variant, 17 were non-AIDP (one case had MFS variant, one AMAN variant, and 15 cases of BFP variant). The majority of the cases have received the one-dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine. The mean age of GBS cases after COVID-19 vaccination was 58 years. The average time for the appearance of GBS symptoms following vaccination was 14.4 days. Most of the cases (40%) of patients belonged to Brighton level 3 outlining maximum diagnostic certainty of patients with GBS

Conclusions: In this systematic review, a temporal association of GBS following COVID-19 vaccination has been reported in 129 cases especially after receiving the one-dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine, Further research is needed to assess all neurological side effects of COVID-19 vaccines such as GBS which was reported after other vaccines like swine influenza vaccine, older formulations of the rabies vaccine, oral polio vaccine, and tetanus toxoid-containing vaccines.

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