When contacted, Dr Acharya said he was fine and recovering. Assuring that the vaccine is safe, Acharya told The Indian Express, “There is no need to be scared (of vaccination). I will get discharged tomorrow (on Tuesday).”
Acute febrile reaction is quite common with vaccination. In the case of a Mumbai doctor who developed transient giddiness due to fever and diarrhoea, by way of ample precautions he was hospitalised and has had an uneventful recovery within a day. Over 3.5 lakh doses of vaccines have already been administered in India, with only a handful of patients needing transient hospitalisation for observation.
One patient, a healthcare worker (ward boy), was reported to have passed away post vaccination in Uttar Pradesh. Autopsy ruled out vaccination as a cause. He was unwell prior to vaccination, and probably should not have been administered the Covishield vaccine. In patients with low immunity, a killed vaccine such as Covaxin is generally a better choice. This seems to be a local failure of the team to assess the patient properly prior to vaccination.
By and large, preliminary responses to vaccination are along expected lines, confirming its safety.
However, we won’t know about efficacy for the next several months.
Update: only nine AEFIs needing admission have been reported in a total of over 6.3 lakh vaccinations: 0.002% of the total.