Representational image.
(IANS)
The Centre on Tuesday re-affirmed the after-effects of different COVID-19 vaccines. Still, it refuted a report based on an RTI plea about the potential ramifications of these jabs as “ill-informed” and providing “erroneous” information.
The report, carried out by IANS on Monday, referred to the RTI reply sent to Pune businessman Prafful Sarda from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO).
An official statement on Tuesday said: “As is the case with all other vaccines, those who get vaccinated with different COVID-19 vaccines may experience mild symptoms like injection site tenderness, pain, headache, fatigue, myalgia, malaise, pyrexia, chills, arthralgia etc. Rarely, few individuals may experience severe adverse events depending upon certain pre-disposing conditions.”
The Centre pointed out that as per the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s policy of proactive disclosure aligned with global scientific evidence in the public domain, “ICMR provided responses to questions” related to the advantages and disadvantages of COVID-19 vaccines.
It added that the ICMR response (to Sarda) provided links to the reputed websites of the Ministry, the World Health Organisation, and the Centre for Disease Control (CDC), where detailed information on various COVID-19 vaccines is available.
The government added that global research studies show that COVID-19 vaccines helped reduce disease severity by preventing hospitalisation and deaths due to the disease, “and benefits of the vaccines overwhelmingly outweigh any adverse effects”.
India’s National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI) has periodically reviewed the benefits and side effects of COVID-19 vaccines used in India and has endorsed the above findings.
Welcoming the government’s stance, Sarda said that he had sent the RTI query to the Union Health Ministry, which, in turn, passed it to various departments like ICMR-CDSCO, etc., for their responses.
“To my queries on the after-effects of all these jabs, the concerned PIOs — ICMR’S PIO Dr Leyanna Susan George and CDSCO’s PIO Sushanta Sarkar — have officially provided the information of all these vaccines comprising their FAQs,” he pointed out.
Sarda said that the government has also not denied the after-effects of all the Indian vaccines, as mentioned clearly through the FAQs, which is “laudable and in the public interest”.
The IANS report on the vaccines’ side effects, published on Monday, struck a chord among all people who have been jabbed and evoked massive responses from different quarters, including on social media.
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The above article has been published from a wire source with minimal modifications to the headline and text.