Around 3.81 lakh people vaccinated, govt says no cases of serious AEFI linked to vaccine found till date

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) said it has so far vaccinated a total of 3.81 lakh healthcare workers across the country.

On Monday, the third day of the vaccine rollout, about 1.48 lakh people were vaccinated across 7,704 sessions in 25 states until 5 pm.

The MoHFW bulletin said there were no cases of severe adverse event following immunization (AEFI) attributable to vaccination found till date.

So far, around 580 cases of AEFI have been reported, of which there were seven cases of hospitalisation.

There were three hospitalisations in Delhi where two were discharged and one was under observation at Max Hospital, Patparganj. One case of AEFI in Uttarakhand is stable and under observation at AIIMS, Rishikesh. The case in Chhattisgarh is under observation at Government Medical College, Rajnandgaon. Of the two cases in Karnataka, one is fine and under observation at District Hospital, Chitradurga and the second case is under observation at General Hospital, Challakere, Chitradurga.

The government said the two deaths were reported in Moradabad, UP and Bellary, Karnataka. In UP, a 52 year-old man, who was vaccinated on January 16, died on January 17. However, the death wasn't related to vaccination, the official bulletin said.

"Post mortem by a board of three doctors revealed death due to cardiopulmonary disease (pockets of pus in lungs, enlarged heart) – not related to vaccination," the government bulletin said.

The 43 year-old person who died in Bellary, Karnataka got the vaccine on January 16 and died on January 18. He died due to anterior wall infarction with Cardiopulmonary failure. The post mortem is planned for January 18 at Vijayanagar Institute of Medical Sciences, at Bellary.

The government on January 16 launched the vaccine rollout. Serum Institute of India's COVID-19 vaccine Covishield and Bharat Biotech's Covaxin were deployed for vaccination.

In the initial phase, it will inoculate about one crore healthcare workers. This will be followed by two crore frontline workers, police, armed forces, municipal workers, revenue staff and others. In the third phase, 27 crore people above 50 years of age and those with co-morbidities like diabetes, hypertension, and organ transplant patients will get the vaccine.