Portugal registers 14,000 suspected adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccines

Portugal had registered 14,447 adverse reactions out of a total of 14,664,616 doses of COVID-19 vaccines administered up to Aug. 31, said a report released by the Portuguese National Authority of Medicines and Health Products (Infarmed) on Monday, reported Xinhua.

According to the bulletin, most reactions occurred to the Pfizer/BioNTech Comirnaty vaccine, followed by AstraZeneca's Vaxzevria, Moderna's Spikevax and Janssen.

The report said that adverse reactions were "infrequent," occurring about once in every thousand inoculations, which qualifies as "a stable value over time."

Of the total number of adverse drug reactions, 5,373 were classified as serious. Of these, 82 cases resulted in death.

"The cases of death occurred in a group of individuals with a median age of 77 years and do not necessarily presuppose the existence of a causal relationship between each death and the vaccine administered," Infarmed explained.

Infarmed emphasized that these data "do not allow the comparison of safety profiles between vaccines," since they were used in population subgroups different in age, gender, health profile, periods and "different epidemiological contexts."