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There have been 264 official reports made about covid vaccine side-effects in the Channel Islands – which equates to 0.2% of the doses administered across the Bailiwicks.
The regional breakdown has been released by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, which regulates medicines in the UK.
It also runs the Yellow Card scheme, which collects and monitors reports of vaccine and medicine side-effects.
The purpose of the self-reporting scheme is to provide an early warning that the safety of a product may require further investigation.
Across the Channel Islands, from 1 January until 5 April, there has been 87 ‘adverse drug reaction’ (Yellow Card) reports made to the MHRA for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, 176 for the Oxford/AstraZeneca and one for a brand that was not specified on the report.
Yellow Cards are filled in online and can be submitted by GPs or individuals.
Pictured: The MHRA has a special section on its website for reporting the side effects of coronavirus vaccines.
Head of Jersey’s vaccination programme, Becky Sherrington, said that the number of Yellow Cards reports from the Channel Islands was too small to be statistically significant, but the MHRA had concluded that the two vaccines used in Jersey were safe and had been administered to millions of people around the world.
“We know that these vaccines can cause side-effects,” she said. “Most of these are mild and short-term, with common ones including feeling tired and having a headache.
“These reports don’t record the severity of the side effect, which could be occurring naturally anyway. Also, we also need to bear in mind that these statistics cover all the Channel Islands but even then, it is a small number.
“We are only a tiny part of the whole and only the MHRA has the analytical expertise to draw inferences from the data. They review all the numbers on a weekly basis and conclude that the two vaccines were are using are safe.”
Pictured: Vaccine Lead Becky Sherrington said the number of reports was not statistically significant.
Mrs Sherrington added that more than half (52%) of the adult population have now received their first dose.
In Jersey, 73,426 doses have been given up to 14 April. In Guernsey, 45,834 doses have been given up to 19 April. Tallying those up and assuming that each Yellow Card report has been filed following a dose, that represents 0.22% of all doses leading to a reported side effect.
The MHRA say that the overall reporting rate across the British Isles for both the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines is around 3 to 6 Yellow Cards per 1,000 doses administered.
Q&A: How are vaccine side effects being tracked?
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