Australia’s Vaccine Safety platform, AusVaxSafety was established in 2014 to actively monitor adverse events following immunisation (AEFI) with influenza vaccines in children, since then it has expanded its scope. The stated purpose is to “optimise community and healthcare provider confidence” in the safety of vaccines, and complement existing programs.

The organisation is led by Australia’s National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance (NCIRS) in collaboration with immunisation providers, private enterprise, research institutions, state and territory governments and the Australian Government Department of Health, and funded by the the government. [3, 4]

Vaccine safety surveillance through AusVaxSafety occurs in 374 selected vaccination clinics around Australia, up from an original 175 sites in 2016-17. Active surveillance is done through survey requests sent out via SmartVax SMS notification on day 3 after vaccination, or “a few days after” the person received a vaccine from a specific location. [1, 2]

Following their first annual report published in 2018, the Department of Health has released 2 more reports: 2019 and 2020 containing infographics of day 3 feedback.   They don’t report on any longer term safety signals.  SmartVax feed reports to the TGA.

Used for COVID-19 AEFI tracking:

  • It appears Vaxtracker, the online survey platform, cuts off surveys at 6 weeks post COVID-19 vaccination.  So the SMS is sent out at 3 days asking for participation in the online survey, which then ends at 6 weeks, and this may just be for select locations.
  • The day 3 COVID-19 vaccine safety monitoring is only charting the already known and expected “commonly reported adverse events”, but doesn’t report on all adverse events that recipients experince, and they don’t report on day 28 or 3 month, for example, follow up which could easily be implemented with their available technology.

In 2020 Professor Allen Cheng an influenza expert, leads all three government vaccine safety advisory groups (Conflicts of Interest?):

  • Chair of the Advisory Committee on Vaccination (ACV) who are regulated to advise the TGA on vaccine products
  • Co-chair of Australian Technical Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) who makes recommendations to the federal and state governments on the use of COVID-19 vaccine following TGA decisions.
  • Expert leader for AusVaxSafety
  • Vice-President of the Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases (ASID)