Reporting an adverse event following immunisation

Why report?

Reporting adverse events following immunisation is important for ongoing vaccine safety monitoring and can help with: 

• finding rare or unexpected side effects from vaccines that may not have been identified in clinical trials
• finding problems with the manufacturing, storage, delivery or administration of the vaccine
• monitoring side-effect trends in specific populations over time. 

For these reasons, it is important to report any side effect that:  

• appears to be getting worse
• doesn’t fit the common reactions for that vaccine. 
   

Who can report an adverse event following immunisation and how?

Anyone can report an AEFI. To find out how visit the Australian Department of Health, Disability and Ageing website.