This Vaccine Safety Quarterly Summary includes AEFI reports received by the Canada Vigilance Program between October 1, 2016 and December 31, 2016. To access reports published by CAEFISS, please visit the CAEFISS Web site.
From October 1, 2016 to December 31, 2016, the Canada Vigilance Program received 167 reportsFootnote * of adverse events following immunization (AEFIs) for which vaccines were the suspected cause.
There were 86 (52%) serious reports. Most of these involved patients with underlying medical conditions and were unlikely related to the vaccination.
The largest proportion of reports (serious and non-serious) involved influenza vaccines (46%) followed by herpes zoster vaccine (22%) and pneumococcal vaccines (9%).
The most frequently reported AEFIs (serious and non-serious) included injection site erythema, pruritus, headache, aggravated condition, and hypotonic-hyporesponsive episode.
Five of the serious reports with the event of aggravated condition were from a patient who received multiple vaccines and 13 of the serious reports of hypotonic-hyporesponsive episode were from 4 patients who received one or more vaccines.
All of these reports lacked sufficient information for adequate assessment. The other AEFIs are common following vaccination and are captured in the respective Canadian product monographs.
This summary may contain duplicate reports. Duplicate reports are reports related to the same patient and event received from more than one source (e.g. pharmacist and consumer).Therefore, the sum of all reports in the line listing may exceed the total number of individual patient cases.