Vaccine safety in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic: Lessons learned on the frontline.

ABSTRACT: Surveillance of Adverse Events Following Vaccination in the Community (SAEFVIC), Victoria's vaccine safety service for reporting adverse events following immunisation (AEFI), has provided integrated spontaneous surveillance and clinical services for individuals affected by AEFI since 2007. We describe SAEFVIC's response to the COVID-19 vaccine program, and reflect on lessons learned for vaccine safety. The massive scale of the Australian COVID-19 vaccine program required rapid adaptations across all aspects of SAEFVIC's vaccine safety services. Collection of AEFI reports was streamlined and expanded, incorporating both spontaneous and active surveillance data. Dramatically increased report volumes were managed with additional staffing, and innovations to automate, filter, and triage report

SUBMITTER: Laemmle-Ruff I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9672672 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature