Summary report on safety monitoring of COVID-19 vaccines in Hong Kong issued

     The Department of Health (DH) today (March 12) issued a summary report on the safety monitoring of COVID-19 vaccines in Hong Kong.
 
     The Department of Health has put in place a pharmacovigilance system for COVID-19 immunisations, including receiving reports of Adverse Events Following Immunisations (AEFIs) related to the COVID-19 vaccines used in Hong Kong from healthcare professionals and pharmaceutical industries.
 
     Since the commencement of the COVID-19 Vaccination Programme, up to March 7 about 93,000 persons have received the first dose of vaccination. Within the same period, a total of 71 AEFI reports (0.076 per cent of all doses administered) were received by the DH. Most of these reports involved cases with presentation of mild events such as dizziness and palpitation. The summary report, including statistics of hospitalisations and information on important cases, is available at the thematic website for the COVID-19 Vaccination Programme (www.covidvaccine.gov.hk/en/vaccine). The DH will update  the summary report regularly.
 
     According to the World Health Organization (WHO), AEFI refers to any untoward medical occurrence which follows immunisation and which does not necessarily have a causal relationship with the usage of the vaccine. The Expert Committee on Clinical Events Assessment Following COVID-19 Immunisation conducts causality assessments on all important AEFIs based on the algorithm of the WHO when necessary information for the cases is available.