Israel Didn’t Check Most Reports of COVID Vaccine Side Effects: Watchdog

State comptroller investigated how the Israel Ministry of Health handled adverse event reports.

A medic prepares a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in Netanya, Israel on Jan. 5, 2022. Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images

Israeli health officials did not look into hundreds of thousands of reports of problems following COVID-19 vaccination, a watchdog found.

People submitted some 354,200 reports of side effects after COVID-19 vaccination to the Israeli Ministry of Health, but 82 percent of the reports were lost, according to State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman. Officials blamed technical malfunctions.