India confirms 1st death following vaccination
Docs warn of worse crisis than 2nd wave if norms not followed
A government panel studying Covid-19 vaccine side effects has confirmed the first death due to anaphylaxis following vaccination.
The causality assessment of 31 reported Serious Adverse Events Following Immunisation (AEFI) cases following
Covid-19 vaccination was carried out by the panel.
“It is the first death linked to Covid vaccination due to anaphylaxis. It re-emphasises the need to wait for 30 minutes after receiving jab. Most of the anaphylactic reactions occur during this period. Timely treatment can prevent deaths,” said Dr N.K. Arora, Chairman, of Covid working group.
The Union health ministry in a statement said any death or hospitalisation following vaccination cannot be automatically assumed to be due to vaccination though states have been directed to make causality assessments to understand whether the “Adverse Event Following Immunisation” was caused directly due to vaccine.
“The number of deaths reported following Covid19 vaccination in the country is only 0.0002% of 23.5 crore doses administered which is within the expected death rates in a population...It is also important to note that the mortality rates for those testing positive for Covid19 disease is more than 1% and Covid-19 vaccination can prevent these deaths. Therefore, the risk of dying following vaccination is negligible as compared to the known risk of dying due to Covid-19 disease,” the ministry said.
Meanwhile, India recorded 60,471 daily new
cases of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours which is lowest after 75 days. The daily deaths were 2,726 and recoveries were more than double the fresh detection. The Recovery Rate has reached 95.64%.
Mumbai’s Dharavi, for the second consecutive day, did not report a single case of Covid. The area has since January 2021 reported 6,861 cases and 359 deaths and has at present 13 active cases. The cases were much less in Mumbai too with 575 new detections. Delhi that too has seen a major dip on Tuesday recorded 228 new cases.
However, a major challenge for these cities that are now opening up is to control the next wave which looks inevitable given the crowd that s out on roads and number of people seen defying social distancing and masks norms. The latest to ease up curbs is Bihar from June 16 to 22 during which government and private offices will function till 5 pm, and shops will remain open till 6 pm. Night curfew will be in place from 8 pm to 5 am. Uttar Pradesh has reduced night curfew timings by two hours from next week while allowing restaurants and malls to function at 50 % capacity.
Doctors have warned that a situation ‘worse
than the second wave’ may erupt if people do not adhere to safety norms and lower their guards. The remarks from many doctors have come after visuals of various crowded markets surfaced.
Dr. Suranjit Chatterjee, a senior consultant at Delhi’s Apollo Hospitals warned that if safety norms are not followed by people and if there is no strict enforcement in case of violations, then “we are in for a trouble again”. He said if people show laxity then possibly the next wave could be worse than the second wave situation.
Dr Richa Sareen, consultant of pulmonology at Fortis hospital said, “The threat of the third wave hitting is quite real and not a hypothesis. We hoped that people will learn lessons from the second wave, but seems we are not being wise as common people. Situation will be worse than during the second wave if we do not wise up.”
The Centre is hoping that with more vaccines available now, the pace of vaccination should pick up from next week. Till now less than 4% Indians have been fully vaccinated. Dr V.K. Paul said trial results of new vaccines Novavax are encouraging, and the vaccine is safe and efficacious.