PETALING JAYA: A total of 44 deaths among booster shot recipients have been received by the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) up to Feb 18.

       Out of this, 22 deaths were found to have no links to Covid-19 vaccination after the reports were evaluated by the Covid-19 Vaccine Special Pharmacovigilance Committee, says NPRA director Dr Roshayati Mohamad Sani.

       “Meanwhile, the remaining 22 reports are still in the process of being completed before they can be presented to the committee for evaluation,” said Dr Roshayati during a Covid-19 vaccine AEFI report media briefing session on Wednesday (Feb 23).

       As of Feb 18, a total of 13,768,697 doses of booster shots were administered, with a total of 1,186 AEFI reports linked to boosters, putting the report rate at 86 per one million dose.

       “The rate of reports on AEFIs due to booster shots is found to be lower than the overall rate of AEFI reports, which stood at 383 reports per million doses,” said Dr Roshayati.

       She added that out of the 1,186 AEFI reports linked to boosters, only 87 or 7.34% were classified as serious.

       Serious cases are categorised as those with effects such as hospitalisation, prolonged stay at the ward, life-threatening or suspected to have caused deaths.