Covishield Vaccine: Bharat Biotech Releases Statement Amid Covishield Blood Clot Row | N18V
Amid global scrutiny surrounding Astrazeneca’s coronavirus JAB Covi Shield due to rare side effects, Bharat Biotech on Thursday released a statement about Made in India Covaxin, saying it is safe and devoid of any side effects. The company issued a press release in public interest, confidently asserting its safety and absence of any side effects including thrombosis and thrombocytopenia syndrome or TTS, a rare side effect associated with Astrazeneca’s vaccine sold under the brand name Covi Shield in India. According to the press release, Covaxin, which is India’s first indigenous COVID-19 vaccine, was developed with a single minded focus on safety first followed by efficacy. Covaxin is the second most used COVID-19 vaccine in India which is an inactivated virus based coronavirus vaccine developed by Hyderabad based Bharat Biotech in collaboration with Indian Council of Medical Research and National Institute of Virology. It gained Emergency Use Authorization in India in January 2021 along with Serum Institute of Indias COVI Shield. Out of 2 billion COVID-19 vaccines administered, over 1.6 billion vaccines were Covi Shield vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca as of September 1st 2022 in India. Bharat Biotech on Thursday released the statement after AstraZeneca admitted in a legal document submitted to the High Court in London in February that its vaccine may lead to TTS in very rare cases. Bharat Biotech said all the studies and safety follow up activities have demonstrated an excellent safety record of covaxin without any vaccine associated incidents of blood clots thrombocytopenia TTS vaccine induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia which is VITT or myocarditis which is inflammation in middle layer of heart. Calling themselves seasoned innovators and product developers, the press release said that Bharat Biotechs team was well aware that while the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines may be short lived, the impact on patient safety could last a lifetime. It emphasized that safety was a primary focus for all their vaccines. It went on to count the timeline via which the vaccine was approved in India. The company said that cov vaccine was the only COVID-19 vaccine in the Government of Indias COVID-19 immunization program, which conducted efficacy trials in India. It also said that the vaccine was evaluated in more than 27,000 subjects as part of licensure procedure. However, having said that, we would like to tell you that both vaccines are safe and there is no reason for panic. Ko Vishal poses no risk to your health and experts have clarified that the rare side effects occurs only during the initial few days of immunization and not thereafter. Hence, it is not a concern for people who had taken the vaccine a few years ago. Also, some people confuse the vaccine with sudden heart attacks, which is a completely different topic and has proved in studies that COVID vaccines are not related to sudden rise in heart attacks.