Don't Junk that Jab

The hesitation shown by people to take the Covid-19 vaccine is due to fears about its after-effects. Stakeholders need to be transparent about its side-effects, while people need to be vigilant about their health

- Dr KK Aggarwal

THERE have been some cases of deaths after the Covid-19 vaccine was administered to people. Therefore, health workers in India are reluctant to take the vaccine. The country needs to address this issue in a transparent answer. One must remember that this immunisation differs from those usually given to children where most recipients are healthy. In the adult population, many have co-morbidities or are prone to illness.

The job of medics is to prevent vaccine-related side-effects, including deaths, by carefully screening high-risk cases and giving them appropriate prevaccine treatment. The job of a doctor should be to change a contra-indication into an indication. Both may produce inflammation and clotting in susceptible individuals. But a vaccine is given to prevent death, not to cause it. Therefore, it is important to do the postmortem of every death and make the findings transparent.

A national panel to monitor adverse events following immunisation is set to re-examine the causes of deaths in individuals who took Covid-19 shots in In dia. So far, 22 people have died in India— within 1 to 10 days of getting the vaccine and this could go up. The vaccination began on January 16. The deaths were reported from UP, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana, Haryana, Odisha, Kerala and Gujarat. Over 28 lakh vaccinations across the country have taken place so far. The deaths have been listed as serious AEFIs (adverse events following immunisation) as per the criteria set up by the government. All were between 23-56 (one 76) years and the deaths were ascribed to cardiovascular problems or “brain stroke”. The vaccine taken in each case was Covishield.