In this episode, we talk to BC's Chief Medical Practitioner for Immunization and Vaccination, Dr. Henry Dix. Dr. Dix answers your questions about whether there have been adverse reactions to vaccines in connection with vaccines in British Columbia, and if they have been linked to deaths.
00:00:00.000Dr. Henry, Minister Dix, we've had many questions come to our newsroom about the vaccine and
00:00:12.980questions about whether there have been adverse reactions in connection with vaccines in this
00:00:17.920province and whether there have been any deaths linked to the vaccine.
00:00:22.460Yes, so absolutely. We have an adverse events called adverse events following immunization,
00:00:28.360or we call them APHEs. So it is something that we have a very strong reporting system in Canada,
00:00:34.700and every province reports it. It's part of an international group that looks at these across
00:00:41.980the world, which is one of the reasons we know some of the very details about adverse events that
00:00:49.040can happen after these vaccines. It's also how we picked up some very rare events like the,
00:00:54.900excuse me, thrombocytic VIT after AstraZeneca. That happens very rarely. So yes, we have had serious
00:01:03.720adverse events following immunization, and we call it that specifically because there are things
00:01:10.680that happen after people are immunized that may or may not be related to the vaccine. We've had four
00:01:16.940people in British Columbia who've had VIT after vaccines that have been caused by the vaccines.
00:01:22.400We've had a very small number of people who've had myocarditis or pericarditis after receiving an mRNA vaccine.
00:01:33.800There's been no deaths associated or directly related to vaccines.
00:01:40.120We have had, and I was looking at the numbers earlier today, but it's a small number in the single digits of people who have died within 30 days of receiving a vaccine.
00:01:52.900None of them in investigation have been directly linked to the vaccine itself.
00:01:58.620But these are things that we follow very carefully.
00:02:02.180There's a report that's published every two weeks on the BCCDC website, and you can see all the details of all of the serious adverse events that have happened.
00:02:11.060Just to clarify, though, Dr. Henry, the number of adverse effects compared to the number of people who have been vaccinated in B.C. is a very, very small percentage.
00:02:23.800It's less than one half of one percent.
00:02:31.600We've had in the vicinity of 400 serious adverse events in almost 10 million vaccine doses given in the province.
00:02:41.440So, yes, these are of the safest vaccines, and the most, you know, one of the things that was really, really important when we started our vaccine program was making sure that we recorded every vaccine that went into everybody's arms.
00:02:56.580And I know early on there was a lot of, you know, how come it's taking us so long?
00:03:00.500Why is it taking us so long to get pharmacies on board?
00:03:02.700It's because we need to get every single dose into our immunization registry so that we can monitor this safety over time.
00:03:10.940And we know exactly which lot of which vaccine people received so we can follow up on any signals that happen around safety.
00:03:19.960And that's been really, really important.
00:03:22.800Far more likely to have adverse reactions to COVID than to vaccines.