India To Review Effects Of Covishield Vaccine Following Its Suspension By 10 Countries

New Delhi: India has decided to review the hospitalisations and deaths in people who took Covishield vaccine. The step comes after at least 10 countries suspended the use of the COVID-19 vaccine by Astra- Zeneca-Oxford University being marketed and manufactured by Serum Institute of India, amid concerns that it may be potentially causing dangerous blood clots in some recipients, The New Indian Express (TNIE) reported.

Countries like Austria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Luxemburg have withdrawn the use of one batch of Astrazeneca vaccine, while others including Denmark have suspended the use of all its supply for two weeks, pending investigations. As per reports, at least 22 recipients of AstraZeneca had developed coagulation disorders and pulmonary embolism in various European countries, the report added.

What WHO said?

The World Health Organisation on Friday said there was no reason to stop using AstraZeneca’s vaccine. Its vaccines advisory committee was looking at safety data and  stressed that no link had been established between the vaccine and clotting. Senior authorities in the Union health ministry and national committee on Adverse Event Following Immunisation said the development is assessed in India’s context, the report added.

“We have not found anything of concern with respect to the administration of Covishield so far but we will look at all hospitalisations and deaths closely again in the light of the new information,” TNIE quoted Narendra Arora, advisor to the AEFI committee as saying. Officials say the exercise, whose results will be shared in a day or two, will involve determining whether there has been an increase in blood clot formation in vaccinated people as compared to the population in the same age group.

“If that is the case, then there would be further investigations to assess whether the coagulations are a result of the vaccine,” another official was quoted as saying.