All immunisations are medications and all medications do have side effects. For each vaccine there is a known list of common or expected adverse events following immunisation (AEFI) and then a smaller list of serious side effects. Reporting significant adverse events is important to allow for signal detection and investigation as part of post-licensure vaccine safety monitoring.

Our new reference page explores what sort of reactions are common and expected following COVID-19 immunisation, and what sort of reactions warrant reporting.

For more information please refer to the following:

MVEC: COVID-19 vaccine adverse events