Serum Vaccine Volunteer Has Lost Ability To Do Simple Tasks, Claims Wife

Chennai: A Chennai volunteer who has sued Serum Institute of India (SII) for adverse reactions of the Oxford vaccine, is facing difficulty in doing simple tasks such as writing, and has lost his American job claims his wife.

The Pune-based institute, one of the world’s largest vaccine makers, said in a statement on Thursday that its COVID-19 vaccine is “safe and immunogenic”. It said that it will “safeguard the reputation of the company which is being unfairly maligned.” The volunteer’s family has claimed Rs 5 crore as compensation.

The volunteer is a 40-year-old marketing professional and was given a dose on October 1 during the phase III trials.

The wife told NDTV that they don’t want to stay quiet and want to “bring this to the notice of people”. She claims her husband’s “ability to write, present things in a creative manner” have been lost and he is unable to work on an American project he had got during the pandemic. He apparently asks his wife to do things like online payments. 

“My husband has lost his creativity and confidence after he was given the vaccine. Our aim is not compensation. Public ought to know about this”, she told NDTV.

“The COVISHIELD vaccine is safe and immunogenic. The incident with the Chennai volunteer though highly unfortunate was in no way induced by the vaccine and Serum Institute of India is sympathetic with the volunteer’s medical condition,” the Adar Poonawala-led Institute said in its statement adding that the Principal Investigator of the Data and Safety Monitoring Board and the Ethics Committee had independently cleared and reckoned it as a non-related issue to the vaccine trial.