The National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) says out of the 751,928 doses administered under the PICKids programme, it only received 94 AEFI reports in children aged five to 11 as of Feb 25.
This is at a rate of 0.1 report per 1,000 doses administered, compared to the overall AEFI reporting rate of Malaysians aged 12 and above, which stands at 0.4 reports per 1,000 doses.
The reporting rate for AEFI cases in children here is also lower than in the US (0.5), Australia (0.7) and Singapore (1.2).
The agency also received another 234 AEFI reports, bringing the total number of cases to 25,445 as of Feb 25, 93% of which are not serious and are expected to recover within one to two days.
NPRA director Dr Roshayati Mohamad Sani said of the new reports, only five were categorised as serious.
“Out of the 25,445 reports we have received, 1,763 were categorised as serious, or at a rate of 26 reports per million doses of Covid-19 vaccines administered,” she said at a press briefing today.
She said the agency received 86 new reports of AEFI cases linked to booster shot recipients, bringing the total to 1,275. Out of this figure, 90 cases were categorised as serious, that is, at a rate of 6.3 reports per million doses, she said.
The NPRA has received one additional report involving a death among booster recipients, bringing the total to 45.
“Of the total deaths among booster recipients, 22 have been evaluated by the health ministry’s Covid-19 vaccine pharmacovigilance committee, which has found the deaths to be unrelated to the vaccines received.
“The remaining 23 reports are still being completed before evaluation by the committee,” Roshayati said.
The agency deems non-serious cases of AEFI as vaccine recipients experiencing side effects including fever, pain at the injection area, headache, muscle pain, and fatigue.
Serious cases are categorised as those involving hospitalisations, life-threatening conditions, or those suspected to have resulted in death.
CLICK HERE FOR THE LATEST DATA ON THE COVID-19 SITUATION IN MALAYSIA