No causal link of Covid vaccination with death of 6 health workers, says Health Ministry

Even as the first phase of the Covid-19 vaccination drive continues in the country, the Union Health Ministry has said that there is no link of death of a few health workers with the Covid19 vaccination. In a statement released on Saturday, the Health Ministry said that a total of six deaths of health workers have been reported in the country but none of them have been found to have a link with the Coronavirus vaccination, news agency ANI reported.

Manohar Agnani, who is the additional Health Secretary was quoted by ANI as saying that none of the deaths reported in the country have any link with the Coronavirus vaccination. The latest casualty was reported from Gurugram, Haryana where a 56-year old health worker died on Saturday. Agnani said that the post mortem analysis of the deceased has confirmed that the reason behind the death of the health worker was cardio-pulmonary disease.

Contrasting a few cases of the hospitalisation of health workers with the total vaccinated individuals, Agnani said that only 0.0007 people who were vaccinated have been hospitalised across the country. Agnani further said that more than 15 lakh health workers have been given the Coronavirus vaccine shot in the first phase of the vaccination drive. According to the provisional data issued by the government, in the last eight days of the vaccination drive, a total of 15,37,190 beneficiaries have been vaccinated in the country through 27,776 sessions.

On Saturday, another health worker, who was vaccinated on January 20, has been admitted at the Government hospital of Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh. The government has maintained that both the Coronavirus vaccines which are being used in the current vaccination drive are 100 percent safe. The two vaccines which have been given emergency use approval include the vaccine developed by Oxford University and AStraZeneca which has been domestically manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII) and an indigenous vaccine developed by Hyderadad based Bharat BIotech in close collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).