PETALING JAYA: A total of 1,747 cases of serious adverse events following immunisation (AEFI) have been reported as of Feb 11, says the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA).

       Its director Dr Roshayati Mohamad Sani said that of the total, 1,104 cases were reported among booster-dose recipients.

       She said this was equivalent to 85 cases per million doses administered, adding that there were also eight cases of non-serious AEFI reported among vaccine recipients aged between five and 13 – equivalent to 0.1 reports per 1,000 doses.

       "Skin reactions, vomiting and abdominal pain were among the adverse reactions reported among recipients aged five to 13," she said.

       Dr Roshayati revealed that the total number of AEFI cases reported now stood at 24,990.

       "There is no increase in the total number of AEFI cases reported for booster doses when compared to primary doses.

       “The same trend is also recorded among countries administering booster doses as part of their immunisation programmes,” she said.

       As of Feb 11, the Comirnaty, CoronaVac, AstraZeneca and Convidecia vaccines reported 1,059, 544, 141 and three cases of serious AEFI respectively.

       Dr Roshayati said the NPRA was also closely monitoring cases of "adverse event of special interest" (AESI) among vaccine recipients.

       This consisted of anaphylaxis and acute facial paralysis for recipients of all vaccines, myocarditis for recipients of the Comirnaty vaccine, and venous thromboembolism with thrombocytopenia for recipients of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

       "Such cases were extremely rare, consistent with the trends reported globally," she noted.

       Based on information from the CovidNow portal, 13,486,823 individuals or 57.3% of the adult population in the country have received their booster dose as of Tuesday (Feb 15).

       A total of 22,939,377 individuals or 97.5% have completed their vaccination while 98.7% or 23,216,096 individuals have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.

       As for adolescents aged 12 to 17, 2,796,605 individuals or 89.9% have completed their vaccination while 2,877,213 individuals or 92.5% have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.

       On Tuesday (Feb 15), 154,776 vaccine doses were dispensed, with 42,374 as the first dose including 39,749 for children aged between five and 11 while 1,657 the second dose and 110,745 as booster dose, bringing the cumulative total of vaccine doses administered under the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) to 65,356,763.