To ask the Minister of Health to detail any measures his Department is taking to ascertain the total number of people affected by a serious adverse reaction to the COVID-19 vaccine.

All vaccines and medicines have some side effects, although not everybody gets them, and the vast majority of side effects are normally mild and short lasting. Unfortunately, in some rare cases, an individual may be injured due to receiving a vaccine. The number of actual injuries proven to be linked to vaccination is extremely small.

The monitoring of vaccine safety including adverse vaccine reactions is the responsibility of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). My Department follows the advice of MHRA and would take immediate action if the MHRA advised there were indications that a vaccine (or any medicine) was causing an unusual number of serious adverse reactions.