Saturday , November 16 2024

205 crore doses of Covishield administered in India: Concern over risk of side effects

London/New Delhi: Millions of people died across the world due to the Corona epidemic. Governments around the world hurriedly arranged vaccines for people to protect themselves from this disease. Oxford-AstraZeneca is also included among the companies making Corona vaccine. The company has now admitted that its vaccine may put some people at risk of heart attack or brain stroke as a side effect. About 221 crore doses of corona vaccine have been given in India, out of which 205 crore doses were of Covishield. After this acceptance of the company, there has been a huge uproar in India. Lakhs of people in the country received AstraZeneca's Covishield vaccine. The company says that its vaccine can cause blood clots.

Covishield was manufactured by Adar Poonawala Serum Institute in India. When the Corona epidemic was spreading not only in the country but also in the world, Serum Institute started producing the vaccine at rocket speed. Almost four years after the Corona epidemic, AstraZeneca now says that its Covid vaccine can cause side effects in some cases.

Following AstraZeneca's admission, Delhi Health Minister Saurabh Bhardwaj on Tuesday asked the central government to investigate the side effects of the Covishield vaccine. Bhardwaj expressed concern over the alleged link between sudden deaths from heart attacks in India and vaccine side effects. He claimed that it has been banned in European countries including Germany, France, Spain, Finland, Norway and Denmark since the beginning of 2021 due to security reasons.

Bhardwaj said, 'We have recently seen news on social media of sudden deaths of people, especially young people, dying while working, dancing, singing, falling while doing some activity and due to heart attack. At the time of these incidents, many people had expressed their apprehensions by linking these incidents to the Corona vaccine. The government should work on how to prevent the side effects of Covishield.

It is noteworthy that more than 221 crore doses of corona vaccine were given in India, out of which 93 percent doses were of Covishield. According to data from COVIN, an app that monitors corona vaccine, the AEFI is 0.007 percent. This dose includes approximately 170 crore doses of Covishield. At the same time, more than 25 crore doses of AstraZeneca have been administered in the world.

In the year 2021 itself, the European Medicine Agency had reported blood clots in 222 people due to AstraZeneca. In the beginning of 2021, warnings were given about the risk of blood clots from the Covishield vaccine. In India too, cases of blood clots were reported and monitored, but the risks of the vaccine outweighed the benefits.

Apart from this, Dr. Sudhir Kumar, Neurologist, Apollo Hospital, said that the side effects associated with Corona vaccine can usually be seen within a few weeks of vaccination. Therefore, people in India who got vaccinated two years ago do not need to worry. Dr. Rajeev Jayadevan, co-president of the National Indian Medical Association, said that the side effects of the vaccine can be seen in the first month after the first dose, not later. Apart from this, no case of blood clotting due to the vaccine has been reported in India.

Earlier, in a legal case in Britain, AstraZeneca had admitted that Corona vaccine Covishield may cause some side effects in people, including blood clotting. In other words, the vaccine can cause heart attacks, brain strokes and low platelets. The company said that side effects can be seen in some cases and people do not need to be afraid of it.

In Britain, a person named Jamie Scott has filed a case in the court against AstraZeneca company. He said he suffered brain damage after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine. Like them, many other families have also complained to the court regarding the side effects of the vaccine. He says that due to this vaccination he is facing many types of physical disorders. The company may be in trouble after AstraZeneca's admission in the British court. If the court accepts the claim of the petitioners, the company may have to pay huge compensation to the affected people.