Delhi govt sets up centre to track adverse effects of Covid, other vaccines

The Delhi government has set up a state-level centre — consisting of doctors from several departments including medicine and cardiology — to monitor and investigate cases of adverse events following immunisation (AEFI) at the Maulana Azad Medical College associated with Lok Nayak hospital.

The team will begin by investigating the adverse events after the Covid-19 vaccination, and then move onto monitoring complications after vaccinations under the government’s universal immunisation programme, officials from the hospital said.

“When a vaccine is administered, especially a new one like that for Covid-19, there are always reports of people fainting or getting diarrhoea. And, in some cases, people also link deaths, which could have happened because of any other condition, to the vaccine. It will be the job of this multi-disciplinary team to go over all the medical records of such people to determine whether or not a reaction is linked to the vaccine,” said Dr Pragya Sharma, professor in MAMC’s department of community medicine, which is coordinating the state-level centre.

Surveillance data after inoculation – including Covid-19 and other vaccines under the government’s immunisation programme – is collected by the government’s immunisation cell.

“The data will continue to be collected as it is currently, but this centre has been started to strengthen the mechanism. Our centre will carry out all the tests and diagnostics as well as provide multi-disciplinary expertise for investigating the cases,” said Dr Sharma.

There have been 0.009% AEFI related to Covid-19 vaccinations in the city, according to data from the government’s CoWIN platform. This is more than the national average of 0.004%.

“There is a very small percentage of people who report adverse events after Covid-19 vaccination; and among those reported, most are symptoms such as fever, rash, or pain at the site of the injection,” said Dr Sharma.