New Delhi: A government panel studying the side effects of the Covid-19 vaccination has confirmed the first death from anaphylaxis after vaccination.
The causality assessment of 31 reported cases of serious adverse events following vaccination (AEFI) following vaccination against Covid-19 was carried out by the panel.
According to a report from the National AEFI Committee, a 68-year-old man died of anaphylaxis (severe allergic reaction) after being vaccinated on March 8, 2021.
“This is the first death linked to the Covid-19 vaccination due to anaphylaxis. He recalls the need to wait 30 minutes at the vaccination center after receiving the vaccine. Most anaphylactic reactions occur during this time and prompt treatment prevents death. “Dr NK Arora, chairman of the national AEFI committee, told PTI.
The Committee examined five such cases which occurred on February 5, eight cases on March 9 and 18 cases on March 31.
Based on data from the first week of April, the notification rate is 2.7 deaths per million vaccine doses administered and 4.8 hospitalizations per million vaccine doses administered, according to the report.
The panel said that simply reporting deaths and hospitalizations as serious adverse events does not automatically imply that the events were caused by vaccines.
Only properly conducted investigations and causality assessments can help to understand whether there is a causal link between the event and the vaccine, the report said, adding that for causal assessments, priority has been given to cases of death.
Of the 31 causally evaluated cases, 18 were classified as having an inconsistent causal association with vaccination (coincidence – not related to vaccination), 7 were classified as undetermined, 3 cases were found to be related to the vaccine product, 1 was an anxiety-related reaction and two cases were found to be unclassifiable, according to the government expert panel report.
Reactions related to vaccine products are expected reactions that can be attributed to vaccination based on current scientific evidence, he said.
Examples of such reactions are allergic reactions and anaphylaxis, etc. Unspecified reactions are reactions that occurred shortly after vaccination, but there is no definitive evidence in the current literature or clinical trial data that this event could have been caused by the vaccine, according to the. report. , the addition of observations, analyzes and additional studies are necessary.
In the other two cases of anaphylaxis, two people were vaccinated on January 19 and 16 and both have been hospitalized and have since recovered.
Unclassifiable events are events that have been investigated, but there is not enough evidence to make a diagnosis due to the lack of crucial information. When this relevant information becomes available, the case can be re-examined for a causal assessment.
Coincident events are events that are reported after vaccination, but for which a clear cause other than vaccination is found during the investigation.
The panel said that the benefits of vaccination far outweigh the low risk of harm and that, as an extreme precaution, all emerging signals of harm are constantly monitored and periodically reviewed. PTI
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