A medic administers the dose of COVID-19 vaccine on a beneficiary during the vaccination drive across the country at a district hospital in Noida. (Photo | PTI)
NEW DELHI: A national panel to monitor adverse events following immunisation is set to re-examine the causes of deaths reported from individuals who passed away soon after taking Covid-19 shots, amid concerns that adequate investigations in these fatalities may not have been carried out.
So far, 10 people have died in India — within 1 to 5 days after getting the jabs — and these deaths have been reported from Karnataka, UP, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Haryana and Odisha after over 28 lakh vaccinations across the country so far.
In each of the 10 cases, vaccination as the cause of death has been ruled out by the district AEFI committees, but all these fatalities are listed as serious AEFIs as per the criteria set up by the government.
The age group of the healthcare workers who died following the vaccinations was between 25 and 56 years.
N K Arora, an advisor to the national AEFI committee, told this newspaper that in most of the cases, to find out the exact cause of deaths, post-mortems have been done.
“The immediate understanding is none of these deaths is causally related to the administration of the Covid vaccine,” he said, adding that the national expert panel will again analyse the causes of deaths using the WHO-recommended algorithm to determine the causation in a scientific and transparent manner.
“The causality assessment findings of the national AEFI committee are to be made public,” Arora added. Experts have expressed concerns over lack of transparency in AEFI investigations.
