Govt panel confirms first death in India after Covid-19 vaccination

68-year-old man was administered Covishield on Mar 8

India confirmed the first death related to Covid-19 vaccination in the report on causality assessment of adverse events following immunisation (AEFI).
 
The death of a 68-year old man who received a Covishield shot on March 8 and died due to anaphylaxis (severe allergic reaction) was classified as ‘vaccine product-related reaction’ by the National AEFI Committee.
 
In a report released on June 4, the health ministry said of the 31 causally assessed cases, 18 were classified as having inconsistent causal association to vaccination (coincidental — not linked to vaccination), seven were classified as indeterminate, three cases were found to be vaccine product-related, one was anxiety-related reaction and two cases were found to be unclassifiable.

 

“According to data in the first week of April 2021, the reporting rate is 2.7 deaths per million vaccine doses administered and 4.8 hospitalizations per million vaccine doses administered. Mere reporting of deaths and hospitalisations as serious adverse events does not automatically imply that the events were caused due to vaccines,” the health ministry report said.
 
AEFI is defined as “any untoward medical occurrence which follows immunization and which does not necessarily have a causal relationship with the usage of the vaccine. It can be any unfavourable or unintended sign, abnormal laboratory finding, symptom or disease”.
 
Of the 31 serious adverse events, 28 were deaths and three cases were hospitalized and recovered.

 
All 28 deaths were of people who were administered the Covishield vaccine. Two adverse events following Covaxin were of hospitalizations — one 22-year-old man had anaphylaxis and another 26-year-old man had syncope (temporary loss of consciousness). The AEFI Committee concluded that the syncope was an “immunisation anxiety related reaction”. The ministry said the number of deaths reported following Covid-19 vaccination in the country is only 0.0002 per cent of 23.5 crore doses administered, which is within the expected death rates in a population. “The 488 deaths that are accounted for are not due to vaccination. They could be because of many factors or underlying co-morbidity. Our vaccines have performed very well on the safety parameter,” Lav Agarwal, joint secretary, health ministry said.

 
Over 260 million vaccines have been administered in the country so far, according to a tweet by the Union health ministry.
 
80% doses were via walk-ins
 
Nearly 80 per cent of 248 million doses recorded on CoWIN till June 13 were administered through walk-in registration, the ministry said.  Of the total 283 million registered on Co-WIN as on June 13, almost 58 per cent were registered on-site, the government data showed. The ministry also said the vaccination per million population in tribal districts was higher than the national average.