02 November 2021
Toni Stanaway
[FYI request #17134 email]
Tēnā koe Toni
Your Official Information Act request, reference: GOV-014622
Thank you for your request of 11 October 2021, asking for the fol owing information under the Official
Information Act 1982 (the Act):
Can you please advise the following associated with Covid vaccine adverse affects or harm
claims (minor, serious, death or otherwise), if any:
Total number of reports/claims to ACC (categorised by adverse affect/harm type) AND for each:
Total of claim outcomes for each category (pending, declined, granted etc).
Background information about treatment injury claims
Before responding to your request, we would first like to provide you some background information
about treatment injuries.
ACC has provided cover for treatment injuries since 1 July 2005. The treatment injury provisions
replaced the medical misadventure provisions of the Accident Compensation Act 2001, to bring it more
in line with the no-fault nature of the scheme.
A treatment injury is a personal injury caused as a result of seeking or receiving medical treatment from,
or at the direction of, a registered health professional. In order to fulfil the criteria for cover, the person
must have suffered a personal injury and there must be a clear causal link between the treatment and
the injury, and the injury must not be a necessary part or ordinary consequence of the treatment.
When considering treatment injury data, it is important to note that the number of claims lodged with
ACC cannot be taken as an accurate indication of the occurrence of injury during treatment or the
quality of care. This is because, among other reasons, not al occurrences of injury during treatment are
lodged with ACC.
Context
Treatment injury (TI) data is available from 1 July 2005, when treatment injury provisions came into law.
Further information about treatment injury can be found at the fol owing links:
• https://www.acc.co.nz/for-providers/treatment-safety/ and
• https://www.acc.co.nz/assets/provider/ACC7971-Supporting-Treatment-Safety-2021.pdf
(overview of treatment injury in public and private surgical hospitals and general practice settings).
Claim lodgement rates are dependent on several factors. They can be influenced by:
• Population demography i.e the characteristics of the resident population, visitors and referred
patients
• Health status of the population treated
• What level of facility the organisation provides i.e tertiary versus secondary
• Familiarity of health providers or clients in recognising and/or lodging treatment injury claims
GOV-014622
Covid-19 vaccine related treatment injury claims
The data below was extracted on 18 October 2021, for treatment injury claims where the treatment
event was
vaccination or
injection/medications, adverse reaction/medication error and where the
medication type was recorded as
vaccine.
However, as these fields are only completed when cover for the claim is decided, the figures provided
have been supplemented by a text search of the claim forms received by ACC which mention
Comirnaty
(the name of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine), or included the terms
covid or
Pfizer and
vacc. This
text search al ows us to identify claims that have been lodged but where cover has not been decided.
Please note that we can only respond based on the vaccine related claims lodged with ACC, and the
figures may differ to those previously reported or supplied. Up-to-date data on the number of adverse
effects reported from the COVID-19 vaccine can be found on the MedSafe website,
here.
TI claims related to the Comirnaty vaccine
Between 18 February 2021 (when New Zealand began COVID vaccinations) and 16 October 2021, ACC
received 684 claims for injuries relating to the COVID-19 vaccination. Of these, 260 claims have been
accepted, 123 have been declined and 301 are yet to be decided. As at 18 October 2021, no claims for
fatalities in relation to the COVID-19 vaccination had been lodged with ACC.
The tables below provide a breakdown of the COVID-19 vaccination claims received by ACC by primary
injury and severity.
Table 1. TI claims related to the COVID-19 vaccine, by primary injury
Primary Injury
Al Accepted Claims
Allergic Reaction
75
Anaphylactic Reaction*
25
Adverse Drug Reaction
24
Cellulitis
7
Cardiac injury
7
Contusion
6
Wound Infection
6
Nerve Damage
4
Infection
4
Other Specified
17
Other Unspecified
85
Total
260
*Al cases identified as anaphylactic reactions were accepted.
Treatment injuries are confirmed and recorded when a claim is decided. The above table shows the
primary injury recorded for the accepted COVID-19 vaccination claims, where the cover decision was
made by 16 October 2021.
Accident Compensation Corporation
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GOV-014622
Table 2. TI Claims related to the COVID-18 vaccine, by severity
The fol owing table shows the number of accepted claims grouped by the total payments made per
claim to 16 October 2021.
Payments to 16 October 2021
Number of Accepted Claims
No payment to date
102
Up to $100
81
Over $100 to $500
63
Over $500 to $1,000
4
Over $1,000 to $5,000
6
Over $5,000
4
Total
260
Measuring the impact of an injury on a person or the permanence of an injury is chal enging. ACC uses
the overal cost of a treatment injury claim as an indicator of the severity of the injury because more
costly claims are likely to indicate claims where there has been a more severe impact on the person
injured. While not always directly related, overall cost is one measure of severity and impact.
Of the 260 accepted claims, 14 resulted in payments of over $500 by 16 October 2021. 102 accepted
claims had yet to receive a payment by 16 October 2021.
How to contact us
If you have any questions, you can email me a
t [email address].
Nāku iti noa, nā
Sasha Wood
Manager Official Information Act Services
Government Engagement & Support
Accident Compensation Corporation
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Document Outline
