Adverse events are among the most heavily scrutinised parts of the covid-19 vaccine process. But India’s adverse events reporting system was woefully unprepared for this, leaving families confused, sowing vaccine hesitancy in communities, while robbing the system of valuable data, reports Priyanka Pulla.
Around a week after she received her first dose of Covishield, the Indian version of AstraZeneca’s covid-19 vaccine, 20 year old Rijuta developed a blinding headache. On 2 June 2021, she was admitted to a large corporate hospital in Bhopal city, Madhya Pradesh. Imaging and blood tests revealed a clot in her brain, says her friend Ajay, while her platelet counts dropped precipitously.
Concerned, the family approached a reputable neurosurgeon for a second opinion. The neurosurgeon told the family that Rijuta’s symptoms were consistent with thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS), the very rare adverse event that occurs between 0.5 and 6.8 times for every 100 000 jabs.1...