580 persons report adverse effects after vaccination

Two people were reported dead; Govts deny deaths connected to jabs

As India intensified its vaccination drive against

Covid-19, 580 persons were found to have Adverse Effect Following Immunisation (AEFI) with seven needing hospitalisation in the last three days. Two people were reported to be dead following the Covid-19 shots — a 52-year-old ward boy working in a Moradabad (UP) hospital, and a 43-year-old man in Bellary (Karnataka). However, both central and state governments denied that the death in Moradabad had any connection to the vaccination while the postmortem of the second person is yet to be conducted.

Since Saturday, a little over 3.81 lakh health, sanitation and frontline workers have been vaccinated out of which over

1.48 lakh were immunised on Monday.

“Post-mortem by a board of three doctors revealed death due to cardiopulmonary disease (pockets of pus in lungs, enlarged heart) and is not related to vaccination,” Union health ministry official said about the death of the 52-year-old ward boy Mahipal Singh. However, the family of Mahipal Singh man alleged that his condition deteriorated after the jab.

Mahipal Singh was given a vaccine shot on Saturday. His family said he had minor pneumonia, cold, cough and fever before the vaccine, but his condition deteriorated after the jab and he was breathless. He died the next day.

However, the Uttar Pradesh government said the man died due to septicemic shock and cardiac arrest and the death was not related to the

Covid-19 vaccination.

“An adverse event following immunisation (AEFI) committee probed the death of the man in Moradabad. The cause of death was septicemic

shock and cardiac arrest and it has nothing to do with the vaccination,” the state’s additional chief secretary (Health) Amit Mohan Prasad told reporters in Lucknow. State officials said no major side effects have

been reported among others vaccinated.

Chief medical officer Milind Chandra Garg said that the cause of death was a cardiac problem. He added that some employees were suffering from fever after taking

the shots. “They were facing general problems but not like Mahipal,” he said.

The second person who died on Monday too was vaccinated on Saturday. The cause of his death, as per Union health ministry,

was anterior wall infarction with cardiopulmonary failure.

Of the seven people needing hospitalisation, three are from Delhi, two in Karnataka, and one each in Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh.