Published 10:56 IST, February 5th 2021
Govt slams 'baseless narrative' of COVID vaccine causing deaths of 19 healthcare workers
The government said, "No evidence suggests the death of 19 health workers due to COVID-19 vaccines, fatalities details soon to be out in public domain"
The Centre on Thursday stated that the allegations that the health ministry had rushed to certify that the COVID-19 vaccination was not the cause of death of 19 health workers were 'absolutely baseless'. They further added that no evidence suggests such a link so far and after deliberations by experts, all details of these fatalities will be made public. A nationwide inoculation drive was launched on January 16 with over three crore healthcare and frontline workers prioritised to get the jabs.
V K Paul, Niti Aayog member confirmed the safety of vaccines being administered in India and said that no death has been attributed to vaccines yet.
"It is settled that these vaccines are safe. After giving 45 lakh doses, there are minimal side effects some times, like one person out of 1,150 persons got a side effect and no death has been attributed yet, proves that these vaccines are superbly safe and safest that can ever be devised," Paul said, reported PTI.
During a press conference, secretary in the health ministry, Rajesh Bhushan informed that 'there is a very structured and robust system for the adverse event following immunisation (AEFI) monitoring in India and information regarding the cause of death of 19 persons will be out in the public domain soon.'
"There are 19 deaths of vaccinated people. Postmortem of all these deaths have been carried out by a board of three doctors. The state AEFI committees have deliberated on all these matters. There is no evidence of deaths caused due to the vaccination and once the National AEFI Committee meets and deliberates on this, the data will be shared on public domain. There is a process which needs to be completed. So those who say that government has rushed to certify that there is no causality is absolutely baseless narrative" Bhushan said, reported PTI.
Bhushan further stated that the country has a total of 8,563 AEFIs which have been captured in the digital system. Vaccinations are done in lakhs. So what percentage is this? 0.18 per cent only. So far, there have been 34 cases of hospitalisation which is 0.0007 per cent of people immunised.
Centre: Deaths Of Healthcare Workers Not Linked To COVID Inoculation
On January 24, the Union Health Ministry informed that the deaths of six health care workers, who were inoculated, were not related to the Covid-19 vaccinations.
(With PTI Inputs)
Updated 10:56 IST, February 5th 2021