Official reports on pharmacovigilance programs - 6 June 2021

10/06/2021

CANADA

 

  • As of 29 May 2021, 22,806,404 doses of COVID-19 vaccines had been administered.
  • Pfizer-BioNTech accounted for 71% of doses administered, Moderna for 19%, and AstraZeneca and Covishield (AstraZeneca manufactured by the Serum Institute of India) for 10%.
  • There were a total of 6,408 individual reports of one or more adverse events (0.028% of doses administered). Of these, 1,262 were considered serious events (0.006% of doses administered), with anaphylaxis being the most frequently reported.
  • Of total reports, there were 2,695 reports of non-serious events and 810 of serious events associated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. For the Moderna vaccine, there were 1,884 reports of non-serious events and 158 of severe events, while for Covishield/AstraZeneca, 558 non-serious events and 240 serious events were reported.
  • A total of 186,276 adverse events following immunization (AEFI) were reported (including 6,408 reports of one or more events), of which the majority were for nonserious events, such as injection-site reactions, paresthesia, pruritus, hives, headache, hypoesthesia, and nausea. A total of 69 cases of anaphylaxis were reported (57 for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and 12 for the Moderna vaccine).
  • As at 29 May, 53% of doses of vaccine had been administered to women and 47% to men. The majority of reported adverse events were in women (81.5% of total doses administered).
  • As of 29 May, there were 42 reports of thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS) following vaccination with Covishield/AstraZeneca. There was also one reported case of TTS with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and one with the Moderna vaccine. Symptoms occurred between 3 and 34 days after vaccination; 17 were in women (ages 40 to 72), 26 were in men (ages 34 to 81), and in one case the sex of the person was not specified.
  • A total of 94 reported cases of adverse events resulted in post-vaccination deaths. Following a medical review, it was determined that 36 of these deaths were not linked to administration of the COVID-19 vaccine; 45 deaths are still under investigation, while five deaths (involving TTS) are considered to be potentially attributable to the vaccination, and eight could not be classified due to insufficient information. 

Source: https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/vaccine-safety/   

 

HONG KONG

 

  • As of 16 May 2021, 1.96 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines had been administered, of which Comirnaty accounted for 1,081,900 doses and CoronaVac for 873,200 doses.
  • As of 16 May, there had been 2,890 reports of AEFI (0.15% of doses administered).
  • A total of 20 reported cases of adverse events resulted in post-vaccination deaths (0.001% of doses administered), of which 13 were associated with the CoronaVac vaccine and 7 with the Comirnaty vaccine. An analysis of these cases indicated that 15 were not associated with vaccination, while 5 were classified as being inconsistent with vaccination as the cause of death.
  • As of 16 May, there were 65 suspected cases of Bell's palsy, of which 34 were associated with the CoronaVac vaccine (0.0039% of doses administered, equivalent to 3.9 cases per 100,000 doses administered), while 31 cases were associated with the Comirnaty vaccine (0.0029% of doses administered, or 2.9 cases per 100,000 doses administered).

 

      Source: https://www.drugoffice.gov.hk/eps/do/en/doc/Safety_Monitoring_of_COVID-19_Vaccines_in_Hong_Kong.pdf      

 

Data from other authorities were updated in Bulletin No. 15.  

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