A total of 447 Adverse Events Following Immunisation (AEFI) have been reported in the last two days of the massive inoculation drive against Covid-19 that is now underway in the country.
Of them, three cases were serious in nature and required hospitalisation, the Union health ministry said yesterday.
The three cases occurred at different hospitals-cum-vaccination centres, the ministry added.
“One has been discharged from Northern Railway Hospital Delhi within 24 hours. One has been discharged from AIIMS Delhi. One is under observation in AIIMS Rishikesh and is fine,” the health and family welfare ministry said.
Meanwhile, as many as 2,24,311 beneficiaries have received doses of Covid vaccines in 553 sessions of vaccination till yesterday held across the country, the ministry added.
The ministry stressed that the majority of the the adverse event are minor in nature and may or may not be related to the vaccination process.
“An adverse event following immunisation is any unexpected medical occurrence which follows immunisation. It may or may not be related to vaccine or vaccination process. Majority of the AEFIs are minor in nature: pain, mild swelling at injection site, mild fever, body ache, nausea, giddiness and mild allergic reactions like rashes, etc,” it said.
The government plans to immunise some 300mn people out of its population of 1.3bn by July.
Just six states carried out vaccinations yesterday, the second day of the rollout.
The government has advised local authorities to limit inoculations to four days a week so as to reduce disruptions to routine health services.
The updated vaccination figures came as a doctors’ representative body at the Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in New Delhi wrote a letter asking for the Covishield vaccine to be supplied instead of Covaxin.
Authorities have given emergency-use approval for two jabs – “Covishield”, a version of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, and the Indian-made “Covaxin”, which has yet to complete its Phase 3 trials. 
“The residents are a bit apprehensive about the lack of complete trial in case of Covaxin and might not participate in huge numbers thus defeating the purpose of vaccination,” said the letter addressing the hospital’s medical superintendent.
“We request you to vaccinate us with Covishield, which has completed all stages of trial before its rollout.”
Pathologist Arvind Ahuja said he shared some of the concerns. “I hope when the data comes out, it is good. Ideally, they should have waited for one month at least as then we would have known better about its efficacy,” the 45-year-old said.