Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information his Department holds on the number of people who have received the (a) Oxford AstraZeneca and (b) Pfizer-BioNTech covid-19 and have since experienced adverse reactions.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency’s Yellow Card scheme is a mechanism by which anybody can voluntarily report any suspected adverse reactions or side effects to the vaccine. It should be noted that a Yellow Card report does not necessarily mean the vaccine caused that reaction or event. Reports to the scheme are known as suspected adverse reactions.

As of 7 March 2021, for the United Kingdom, 35,325 Yellow Cards have been reported for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, 61,304 have been reported for the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine and 281 have been reported where the brand of the vaccine was not specified. For both vaccines the overall reporting rate is around three to six Yellow Cards per 1,000 doses administered.