Centre should urgently address alleged side-effects of Covishield, says Delhi health minister

NEW DELHI — Delhi Health Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj on Tuesday said the Centre should work to urgently address the alleged side-effects of the Covidshield vaccine as millions of people in India were administered the shot during the Covid pandemic.

Bharadwaj expressed concern over the alleged link between the vaccine’s side-effects and a series of sudden deaths in India, claiming that Covidshield was banned in several European countries, including Germany, France, Spain, Finland, Norway and Denmark, at the beginning of 2021 due to apprehensions about its safety.

UK-headquartered pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has admitted that in “very rare cases”, its COVID-19 vaccine can cause a blood clot-related side-effect but the causal link is unknown, according to court papers being quoted in the UK media.

The Daily Telegraph reported that in a legal document submitted to the High Court in London in February for a group action brought by 51 claimants, AstraZeneca admitted that the vaccine developed with the University of Oxford to protect against COVID-19 may cause Thrombosis with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome (TTS) in “very rare cases”.

The AstraZeneca Vaxzevria vaccine, also manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, was marketed in India as Covishield.

Speaking about complications related to the Covidshield vaccine, Bhardwaj told PTI, “The central government should urgently address the alleged side-effects of the vaccine because millions of people in India have been vaccinated with Covidshield.”

He said, “We have seen numerous videos on social media recently showing people collapsing and dying immediately after performing activities, which was not observed before the pandemic. Many people speculate a connection to the coronavirus vaccine and such reports are a matter of concern as they escalate tension.”

“Most of the people who died, they were young. The government should work on that how can we stop it if people are experiencing side-effects,” he added.

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