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KUALA LUMPUR – Only one serious case of adverse effects following immunisation (Aefi) has been reported among children, the Health Ministry (MoH) said today.
National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency director Dr Roshayati Mohamad Sani said 58 reports of Aefi have been received as of Monday.
She added that a total of 383,165 vaccine doses have been administered to children under 12 as of February 18.
“From these reported Aefi cases, only one involved a child being admitted to hospital and the child has since been discharged,” she said during an engagement session with the media today.
On average, Roshayati said 0.1 Aefi cases are reported for every 1,000 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine administered to children.
The ministry, however, did not provide updates on the supposed vaccine-induced death of a 13-year-old boy 18 days after receiving his first dose.
MoH has received, as of February 18, a total of 44 reports of suspected vaccine-induced deaths among booster dose recipients, but none have been confirmed as being caused directly by the vaccine.
“A total of 22 of the reports of deaths have been studied by the Covid-19 Vaccine Special Pharmacovigilance Committee, which found these deaths had no correlation or could not be linked to the vaccines that they received,” said Roshayati.
She added that another 22 reports are still being evaluated by the committee.
As of February 18, she said, 13,768,697 booster vaccine doses have been administered to qualified adults, with 1,186 Aefi reports received.
This averages out to 86 reports per one million booster doses. Roshayati said a total of 87 reports were classified as serious Aefi cases, with a report rate of 6.3 cases per million doses.
Roshayati also assured thorough investigations are conducted once a death report comes in concerning booster dose recipients.
She said the committee comprises experts from the public, private, and academic sectors, all tasked to study each report before making a consensus on possible links to the vaccines.
“These reports, which include all the relevant lab and post-mortem results, are made at the state and district levels before being submitted to the committee, who will deliberate and evaluate the investigations before determining the cause of death.
“So, if the cause of death happens to be a myocardial infarction, that will be recorded as what caused the individual’s death, not the vaccine,” she said.
In total, the ministry has received 25,211 Aefi reports, with an average of 383 reports per million doses, including recipients of the first, second, and booster doses, and those under the PICKids child vaccination programme.
A total of 93% of all Aefi cases reported were classified as non-serious cases, said Roshayati, adding how these patients usually recover within a day or two.
The remaining 7% of 1,758 of Aefi cases are classified as serious, or at an average of 27 serious cases per million doses.
These involve those requiring hospitalisation and extended ward admittance, or cases of suspected deaths caused by the vaccine. – The Vibes, February 23, 2022
