Australia’s active vaccine safety system
Like all medications, vaccines have potential side effects, sometimes called ‘adverse events following immunisation’ (AEFI) by healthcare professionals.
However, unlike other medications that are given to a small number of people to treat a disease, vaccines are given to a large proportion of healthy people to prevent a disease.
Therefore, vaccines are held to a very high safety standard as there is a lower tolerance for side effects compared with other medications.
To find out more about how safety monitoring works at each stage of a vaccine’s lifecycle, see:
How are vaccines developed
Vaccine safety after vaccine approval
Vaccine safety monitoring
