Question

VAERS is a national public health surveillance system that represents the ""front line"" of vaccine safety activities. A limitation of the system is:

-It does not provide information on total number of doses of vaccines given
-Highlights expected adverse events
-Provides additional assurance about safety of a new vaccine
-Covers new, unusual or rare events of newly licensed vaccine

Answer 1

VAERS monitors vaccine safety but has the limitation of not providing information on the total number of vaccine doses administered, making it difficult to assess actual risk rates.

Step-by-step explanation:

The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is a critical tool in post-marketing surveillance to monitor the safety of vaccines after they have been approved for use. A limitation of the VAERS is that it does not provide information on the total number of doses of vaccines given. This means that while VAERS can highlight potential concerns or adverse events following vaccination, it cannot be used to calculate the incidence rate of these events because the total population at risk (i.e., the number of doses given) is unknown, making it challenging to assess the true risk associated with a vaccine. VAERS primarily focuses on capturing data on adverse events, particularly those that are new, unusual, or rare in nature, offering a mechanism to potentially identify concerns with newly licensed vaccines while providing a surveillance system for expected or known side effects.