Comparing No-Fault Compensation Systems for Vaccine Injury

The rapid development and deployment of vaccines has been, and remains, key to overcoming the pandemic caused by the SARS-Co-2 virus. While the speed with which scientists developed, and pharmaceutical companies produced, Covid-19 vaccines has been a much-lauded success, vaccine distribution and administration has raised political, logistical and ideological challenges that proved more difficult to overcome. A particular intractable problem for the global community was the equitable distribution of the vaccine between rich and poor. However, even in countries in which vaccines were available in sufficient quantity, the success of immunisation programmes depended on the population’s willingness to be vaccinated. Although the Covid-19 vaccines have proven to be remarkably safe, one mechanism to shore up support for immunisation has consisted of providing financial support to people who suffered rare adverse reactions to the vaccine. This has led to the introduction of new schemes, or the expansion of existing schemes, that provide no-fault compensation to those who have suffered vaccination injuries. The number of vaccine injury compensation schemes has nearly doubled since Covid-19 arrived, making it timely to engage in a comparative assessment of the current global landscape of vaccine injury compensation schemes.