Freedom of Information request on discrepancies in statistics of people aged 30-39 dying of a thromboembolic event with concurrent thrombocytopenia following COVID-19 AstraZeneca vaccination (FOI 21-559)
Published 13 August 2021
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21st June 2021 FOI 21/559
Dear
Thank you for your enquiry where you asked the following:
“In the Yellow Card report of 13th May for Cov-19 AstraZeneca it was stated that 9 people in the 30- 39 age group had died of a thrombo-embolic event with concurrent thrombocytopenia following vaccination. A week later in the report issued on 20th May this had reduced to 8 people. Please can you explain this discrepancy?”
Due to high reporting volumes the MHRA sometimes receives multiple reports of the same case from different reporters (for example a family member and a healthcare professional both separately reporting the same event). When these cases are picked up by us through our regular monitoring processes, we have a responsibility to merge these cases into one, which can account for fluctuation of numbers in the overall Yellow Card data.
Regarding the reduction in case numbers from 9 to 8 between the 13th and 20th of May, we have investigated this and can confirm that it was due to the merging of a duplicate case.
Thank you for raising this issue with us, and for your interest in the Yellow Card Scheme.
I hope the information provided is helpful, but if you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you have the right to ask for an internal review. Internal review requests should be submitted within two months of the date of this response; and can be addressed to this email address.
Yours Sincerely,
FOI Team, Vigilance and Risk Management of Medicines Division