A lawyer has filed an application in the Supreme Court seeking a probe into the side effects of Covishield and directions to the government to constitute a fund to compensate those who were “severely disabled or died” after being administered the vaccine.
Advocate Vishal Tiwari filed the application in his petition pending since 2020 over “spurious Covid-19 vaccines”. He cited a document Covishield manufacturer AstraZeneca filed in a United Kingdom (UK) court acknowledging the vaccine had rare potential side effects.
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AstraZeneca has said Covishield can cause Thrombosis Thrombocytopenia Syndrome (TTS), a rare syndrome resulting in blood clots and low platelet count, in very rare cases. The admission came in a class action lawsuit. One Jamie Scott, who filed the lawsuit, received the AstraZeneca vaccine in April 202. Scott later developed a serious brain condition. Another 51 cases have been filed in the UK court demanding damages of over €100 million from the company.
Tiwari said over 17.5 million doses of Covishield have been administered in India. “After Covid-19 [pandemic], there has been an increase in the cases of death due to heart attack and collapse of persons. There have been a number of cases of heart attack even in youngsters. After the document filed in UK court by the developer of Covishield, we are compelled to think upon the risk and hazardous consequences of Covishield vaccine which have been administered to the citizens at a large number.”
Tiwari said a medical expert panel comprising doctors from Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences be constituted under the supervision of a former Supreme Court judge to look into the matter.
The Supreme Court is separately hearing a petition of parents of two people, who died after being administered the first dose of Covishield in May and June 2021. In an affidavit in response to the petition, the government said one of the victims developed TTS, an adverse effect following immunization (AEFI).
The affidavit said 26 AEFI cases of TTS were reported until September 30, 2022, of which 12 resulted in death in India. The government said this was less compared to 105 TTS cases reported in Canada and 173 cases in Australia.
