“As regards the first quarter of this year, the SMCA received 1,151 notifications of adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccines,” Gytis Andrulionis, the service's director, told a press conference on Tuesday.
Most of the reports, i.e. 933, were related to the Comirnaty vaccine, 82 – to the Vaxzevria vaccine, 68 – to the Spikevax vaccine, 64 – to the Janssen vaccine, and one – to the Nuvaxovid vaccine, he added.
Overall, the SMCA received 7,959 reports on suspected adverse reactions by March 31, which accounted for 0.18 percent of the total number of vaccine shots administered.
Most of the reports received by March 31, or 92 percent, concerned minor suspected adverse reactions while 8 percent concerned severe adverse reactions, which, according to the service, included four reports of myocarditis and pericarditis.
The SMCA also received six reports of deaths after vaccination against COVID-19 in the first quarter of 2022. The fatalities were aged between 60 and 80 years, or 73.5 years on average.
The service stressed that most of the fatalities had chronic underlying medical conditions, which could have caused their deaths, and a causal link between the deaths and the vaccine had not been confirmed.
According to the SMCA data, nearly 4.5 million vaccine doses have been administered in Lithuania since the beginning of the vaccination campaign.