The demand is from the Movement for Children and Young People in the Pandemic, created in 2021, and which announced that it had sent a letter to all deputies arguing that the “establishment of a fair system of compensation for damages caused by covid-19 vaccines is fundamental and urgent” for citizens’ confidence in the health system and for the maintenance of public health in Portugal.
The pharmacovigilance report from the National Medicines Authority (Infarmed), with data received by the end of December 2022, ensures that “various studies prove that vaccines against Covid-19 are safe and effective”.
“Vaccination against Covid-19 is the most effective public health intervention to reduce the number of cases of serious illness and death caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection. It is estimated that, in 2021 alone, vaccines against Covid-19 have prevented more than 250,000 deaths across the European Union”, says the report from the national authority.
The letter asks each of the parliamentarians to “adopt this cause”, claiming that the State must assume the “recognition, support and compensation of people with damage caused by vaccines against Covid-19, so that these Portuguese people of all ages and their families who have been harmed, are duly recognised, supported and compensated.”
“While several European countries have already implemented compensation systems for these cases, Portugal remains significantly behind in protecting its citizens”.
The movement uses data from Infarmed to highlight that, until December 31, 2022, 39,135 adverse reactions were recorded, of which 8,518 were classified as serious.
“Of this total, there were 142 deaths and 400 cases affected children and adolescents under 18 years of age”, the movement further states.
“It can be stated, without any doubt, that these are the medicines that in the history of Portuguese pharmacovigilance, like other countries, have the highest number of reported adverse reactions”, the letter also claims.
According to the Infarmed report, the 39,135 cases of suspected adverse reactions reported by health professionals or even users, compared to the total of almost 28 million vaccines administered so far, corresponding to around “1.4 cases per 1,000 vaccines administered.”
The 8,518 that were considered serious were equivalent to 0.3 cases per 1,000 vaccines administered, thus verifying that adverse reactions to vaccines against Covid-19 are “infrequent” and “serious cases are rare.” ”, highlights Infarmed.
The same report indicates that the 142 cases that “had a fatal outcome” represented 0.005 cases per 1,000 vaccines administered and occurred in a group of people with a median age of 77 years.
“These events cannot be considered related to a vaccine against Covid-19 just because they were spontaneously reported to the National Pharmacovigilance System”, says Infarmed, highlighting that a death “can be explained by the patient's clinical history and/or other treatments, the causes of death being diverse and without presenting a pattern”.
“Vaccination against Covid-19 will not reduce deaths caused by other causes, for example, health problems unrelated to the administration of a vaccine, therefore, during vaccination campaigns, it is expected that deaths from other causes will continue to occur, sometimes in close temporal association with vaccination, and without necessarily having any relationship with vaccination”, explains Infarmed.
Pain at the injection site, headache and muscle pain, fever and fatigue were the five most reported adverse reactions to Infarmed.