FAQ
COVID-19 is a global pandemic that affects people’s health and life. The COVID-19 vaccine is expected to play an important role in the control of the global pandemic. Hence, it is immensely important to closely monitor the safety of the vaccines as they begin to be taken up by the citizens of Hong Kong. A comprehensive post-marketing surveillance is needed to monitor for potential adverse events of COVID-19 vaccines while in widespread clinical use.
1. What is the University of Hong Kong (HKU) CARE Programme?
The CARE Programme is a comprehensive surveillance programme that closely monitor known and potential adverse events of COVID-19 vaccines. It aims to ascertain details of adverse events to inform the public in a timely manner. The HKU Department of Pharmacology and Pharmacy team is responsible for implementing the CARE Programme.
2. What kind of personal data is collected?
De-identified individual information, demographic information and vaccination records (such as vaccination date, type of vaccine, batch number and vaccination location).
3. What kind of clinical data is collected?
Known and potential adverse events after receiving the COVID-19 vaccines and the relevant data such as diagnostic records and laboratory data from the hospitals will be collected.
4. Why is such data collected?
Your personal data will be collected to ascertain your COVID-19 vaccination status and your clinical data will be collected to investigate the association between any adverse events and the COVID-19 vaccines. It is immensely important to collect the data to conduct the surveillance to identify any adverse events following immunisation and inform the public in a timely manner.
5. How will the collected data be handled?
All data will be entered into electronic databases and destroyed as per usual practice after conclusion of the surveillance. All personal and clinical data will be anonymised and kept confidential. No personal identifier will be reported in the reporting of analysis.
