Influenza vaccination mortality statistics

FOI Ref: ​FOI/2022/3990

You asked

1. Under the FOIA, could you tell me how many people have died from the influenza vaccine within the last 12 months?

2. Under the FOIA, can you please provide me with numbers on how many deaths have occurred due to the influenza vaccine over the last 18 months?

We said

Thank you for your request.

Our mortality data are derived from the information on death certificates. All the conditions mentioned on the death certificate are coded using the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10) the coded mortality data available up to end of December 2020 is coded to version 2014 of the ICD10 framework.

There is no code that exists specifically for influenza vaccinations.

In these circumstances a death that was a consequence of a reaction to a viral vaccine, the underlying cause would be coded under 'Y590: Other and unspecified vaccines and biological substances'.

If someone died of anaphylaxis which was a result of a viral vaccine the death would be coded as Y590 (underlying cause), with an additional secondary cause code of T886: Anaphylactic shock due to adverse effect of correct drug or medicament properly administered.

Therefore, we do not hold the specific information you have requested

However, mortality caused by the Y59.0 cause code can be extracted from our NOMIS webservice, as well as other annual mortality data by cause for 2013 to 2020.

We have provided deaths where the Y59.0 ICD-10 is used for 2019 and 2020 for England and Wales in the below table.

If you would like to extract further data, instructions are detailed below:

• Select the geography (England and Wales, regional or by local authority).

• Select Age - All ages or 5-year age bands.

• Select Gender - Total or Male/Female

• Select rates - All deaths, rates or percentage of population for example.

• Select cause of death (ICD10 code search is available). Y590

• Select format (Excel or CSV for example)  

We can provide analysis of the ICD-10 code Y590 with secondary mentions of T886 Anaphylactic Shock if this is of interest to you as a bespoke customer request Special extracts and tabulations of mortality data for England and Wales are available to order (subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs, where appropriate).  

Such enquiries would fall outside of the Freedom of Information regime and should be made to: Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.

The data provided to you above for 2021 data will be published in July 2022 as part of the Deaths Registered Series, this is to allow  the inclusion of late registrations, which are deaths that have been referred to Coroner for investigation.  More information on late registrations can be found in our Impact of registration delays on mortality statistics

With the publication of the DR series in July 2022,  this data will also be available on the NOMIS webservice with a full ICD-10 code breakdown available in our 21^st Century Mortality publication. As previously noted, we do not hold the specific information you have requested so this release will include deaths for 2021 where Y59.0 is the ICD-10 code registered (death due to viral vaccines)

Please follow our release calendar for updates Release Calendar

As noted above, please feel free to contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk directly for further information.