FOI reference: FOI-2026-3737
You asked
Please could you send me the statistics regarding the annual UK number of deaths following the administration of the flu vaccination post 2020.
We said
Thank you for your request.
We are responsible for the production of mortality statistics for England and Wales. National Records Scotland (NRS) and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) are responsible for statistics pertaining to Scotland and Northern Ireland. They can be contacted at foi@nrscotland.gov.uk and info@nisra.gov.uk, respectively.
Our mortality data come from the information collected at death registration. All of the conditions mentioned on the death certificate are coded using the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10). From all of these causes, an underlying cause of death is selected using ICD-10 coding rules.
The underlying cause of death is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as:
a) the disease or injury that initiated the train of events directly leading to death, or
b) the circumstances of the accident or violence that produced the fatal injury
There is no specific ICD-10 code for deaths involving the influenza vaccination. However, ICD-10 code Y59.0 relates to all viral vaccines causing adverse effects in therapeutic use. This code would not usually be expected to be selected as the underlying cause of death. Rather, it may be assigned where an adverse effect of a viral vaccine is mentioned on the death certificate, alongside the disease, injury or reaction recorded as causing the death. Y59.0 may therefore appear as a contributory code and covers adverse effects involving vaccines for diseases such as influenza, measles, mumps, rubella and other viral vaccines; it does not identify influenza vaccination specifically.
While we do not hold the analysis you have requested, information on deaths involving the adverse effects of viral vaccines in therapeutic use, for deaths registered in England and Wales, in each year from 2021 to 2025, along with other special extracts and tabulations of mortality data for England and Wales are available to order from Health.Data@ons.gov.uk. Such services are subject to legal frameworks, resources and agreement of costs. Please note, there will be a charge for this work which would be subject to our charging policy.