India vaccinates 220k over two days of drive

THREE PEOPLE TAKEN TO HOSPITALS WITH SEVERE REACTIONS, BUT MOST OTHERS WERE MILD, SAY GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS

NEW DELHI: Six states carried out roughly 17,000 more coronavirus vaccinations on Sunday, the Union health ministry said, pegging the figure of total immunisations at 224,301 since the process began on Saturday morning.

According to officials, among the 207,229 who got doses on the first day, three people — or .0014% — had significant side effects. Of these three, two were hospitalised overnight and discharged the following day while one remained admitted as of late Sunday.

“None of the three had any serious adverse reactions post immunisation.they largely had fever, headache, nausea, etc. Only three people of all having experienced adverse reactions needed to be hospitalised, of which two have already been discharged,” said Manohar Agnani, additional secretary, health ministry, while updating on the Covid-19 vaccination drive that began in the country on Saturday. Overall, a total of 447 adverse events following immunisation (AEFI) were reported and most were mild side effects such as headache, nausea and low-grade fever.

The three who had significant side effects were each vaccinated at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, the Northern Railways Hospital in the Capital and AIIMS, Rishikesh. The recipient in the Rishikesh facility was yet to be discharged.

According to separate officials at each of these facilities, who asked not to be named,

AIIMS Delhi used Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin while the other two facilities used Serum Institute of India’s Covishield. Across the country, a large majority of the vaccinations done on Saturday were using the Covishield vaccine since that has one of the highest volumes of ready stock.

“There is a set protocol to deal with adverse events post immunisation that will be followed across the centres conducting vaccination sessions. Protocols are also in place for systemic investigation and causality assessment of serious AEFIS, which doesn’t end at hospitalising the recipient, rather it needs to be established whether the reaction happened due to vaccination or something else,” said Agnani.

According to the ministry, a majority of adverse event following immunisation (AEFI) are minor in nature: pain, mild swelling at injection site, mild fever, body ache, nausea, giddiness, and mild allergic reactions such as rashes, etc.