Fact Check: Can Anaesthesia Cause Deaths In Vaccinated People?

Bhubaneswar: A social media post claiming that anaesthetic drugs can be life-threatening for vaccinated people has gone viral.

It says that people going for surgeries, even dental ones, that require anaesthesia should refrain from getting vaccines. It asks vaccinated people to wait for a month before undergoing these surgeries else it might even cause death.

However, there is no merit to this claim. No such warning has been issued by any doctor or vaccine maker.

Doctors, as a practice, ask people to get vaccinated with 2 doses before undergoing an elective surgery so as to be safe.

Dr Samiran Panda of ICMR told India Today that there’s no scientific evidence to validate this, and called this an “unfounded  misinformation”. He explained that any immuno-suppressive drug that will hinder the body’s immune response should be avoided just after vaccination so as to get the full benefit of the vaccine. However, any anaesthetic drug is short-active and will not affect the vaccination, he added.

AIIMS director Dr Randeep Guleria also labelled this as “fake news”.

“Allowing such misstatements to propagate may impact many vulnerable individuals awaiting anaesthesia for surgical procedures and their inclination for vaccination,” The Malaysian Society of Anaesthesiologists and College of Anaesthesiologists said in a statement.