A second case happened in Karnataka within a span of three days, a person who received the Covishield vaccine two days back, died due to myocardial infarction on Wednesday morning. The Health Department said that the death was not associated with the vaccine. In the meantime, Karnataka has crossed the one lakh mark for receivers for the COVID-19 immunization.

The deceased person Dr Jayaprakash, aged 59 years was a well-known orthopaedic surgeon and also an owner of J P Hospital in Shivamogga. As per the health department officials, he tookthe vaccine shot on Monday and later he continued to work at the hospital. He went to teach students at a private medical college and also saw few out-patients in his hospital. But, on Wednesday morning, he complained of chest pain and was immediately rushed to hospital where he was declared brought dead.

District Health Officer Rajesh Suragihalli said that Dr Jayaprakash died because of cardiac arrest and is not related to the vaccine. 55 per cent of the targeted recipients took the vaccine in the Karnataka state on Wednesday. Few districts such as Dharwad Chitradurga, and Koppal had only about 28 percent people to take the shot.

Chikkamagaluru district had the highest turnout at 73 percent. The other districts who performed better in terms of vaccine coverage on Wednesday were Udupi and Kodagu at 66 percent, Tumakuru at 68 percent, Vijayapura at 66 percent and Yadgir at 65 per cent. Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan had instructed the states to involve recipients of the vaccine. He said that vaccine hesitancy has been observed in other countries too. It is not related to only COVID-19. The degree might be more in COVID-19 because it is a new illness and a new vaccine and has been seen in polio, mumps and measles. The only way of addressing this issue is by engaging constantly with the recipient groups and to resolve their doubts and confusions. This advice is given to all state governments.

State Health Minister, Dr K Sudhakar said that in Karnataka, there is no such major caution among doctors or front-line workers. They too are counselling and continually trying to create awareness with leading doctors by setting examples and taking the vaccine. They are expecting more healthcare workers and front-line workers to take the vaccine shots in the coming days. The minister also explained that both the deaths that were reported in the state were not related to the vaccine, but because of cardiac arrest. The CoWIN app continued to suffer certain glitches in many districts and the officials who are doing the registrations manually fear that it might create problems once the number of recipients increases.

Source: The New Indian Express