Surveillance of adverse events following immunisation in Australia annual report, 2013

This report summarises Australian passive surveillance data for adverse events following immunisation (AEFI) for 2013 reported to the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) for 2013 and describes reporting trends over the 14-year period 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2013. There were 3,161 AEFI records for vaccines administered in 2013. This is an annual AEFI reporting rate of 13.9 per 100,000 population, the 2nd highest since 2000 and an increase of 59% compared with 2012 (1,994 AEFI records; 8.8 per 100,000 population). The increase was partly due to implementation of enhancements to vaccine safety reporting. This included stimulated reporting of AEFI as part of the extension of national human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination under the National Immunisation Program to males aged 12-13 years, along with a catch-up program for males aged 14 and 15 years in February 2013 (n=785; includes males and females), in which certain events, such as syncope, were closely monitored. Eighty-two per cent (n=341/414) of the syncope reports were following HPV vaccination and of these 57% (n=195) were males and 43% (n=146) were females. In addition, reporting rates for most other the vaccines were higher in 2013 compared with 2012. The majority of AEFI reports described non-serious events while 5% (n=158) were classified as serious. There were 4 reports of death; however, all deaths were investigated by the TGA and no clear causal relationship with vaccination was found. The most commonly reported reactions were injection site reaction (13%), rash (10%), pyrexia (8%), and syncope (7%).