What Healthcare Providers Need to Know about the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) – Reporting and Public Health Uses

Background:  The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is the US frontline surveillance system to detect potential vaccine safety problems.  VAERS, co-managed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, accepts reports of adverse events that occur after immunization and depends heavily on receiving reports from healthcare professionals. 

Setting:  Various public health and clinical settings that immunize patients.

Population:  Healthcare professionals who provide immunization services.

Project Description:  The goal of this presentation is to inform healthcare professionals of what they need to know regarding VAERS. We will describe the VAERS project, including its strengths and limitations, and explain how to submit reports and access publicly available VAERS data.  We will also highlight recent vaccine safety issues in which VAERS data has made significant contributions to public health.  Examples are: 1) monitoring the safety of influenza vaccines (including 2009-H1N1 vaccine),  2) describing the safety profile of Tdap vaccines in persons aged >=65  years to provide evidence for a new vaccination policy and 3) using VAERS reports to help define a new contraindication, severe combined immunodeficiency syndrome (SCID) for rotavirus vaccine.

Results/Lessons Learned:  Healthcare providers play a vital role in monitoring vaccine safety by reporting adverse events after vaccination to VAERS. As a result of this session, public health professionals and immunization providers will be better informed regarding the importance of VAERS reporting and the role of VAERS in the US vaccine safety system. They will be able to describe how to report to VAERS, how to search VAERS public data on the internet and will understand some recent important contributions that VAERS has made to public health.