Important: VAERS reports alone cannot determine if a vaccine caused an adverse event. Reports may contain incomplete, inaccurate, or unverified information. Correlation does not equal causation.
Local reaction appears in 5,870 VAERS reports across all vaccines. Of these, 1 reports also mentioned death and 116 involved hospitalization. The severity rate (deaths + hospitalizations as a percentage of reports) is 2.0%. The top vaccines associated with this symptom are Pneumococcal (PPV23), Chickenpox (Varivax), Shingles (Zostavax). Remember: VAERS reports show temporal association, not causation.
Local reaction has been reported 5,870 times in VAERS from 1990 to 2026.
Of these reports, 1 were associated with death (0.02%) and 116 involved hospitalization.
The overall serious outcome rate (death or hospitalization) for reports mentioning Local reaction is 2.0%.
This data comes from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), jointly managed by CDC and FDA.