India Investigates Adverse Reactions To Volunteers Experiencing The AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine Trials

Illustration (Unsplash / Daniel Schludi)

JAKARTA - The Indian Medical Research Council (ICMR) is assisting with an investigation into a suspected adverse reaction during AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine trial. This was done after one of the COVID-19 vaccine volunteers in the country experienced an adverse reaction while being tested.

Previously, according to The Hindu's report, a 40-year-old man reportedly complained of adverse effects on AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine trials. He reportedly suffered serious neurological damage and psychological symptoms after receiving a vaccine run by the British drug maker Serum Institute of India (SII).

The volunteer, assisted by law firm NGR PRasad & R Rajaram Advokat, sent a complaint demanding compensation of US $ 676,288 or around 9.6 billion rupiah to ICMR, SII, AstraZeneca and the Drugs Controller General of India. He also demanded that the vaccine trials that were being tested on 1,600 volunteers in India, be stopped immediately.

Doctor Ramakrishnan, one of the principal investigators of the experiment in Chennai, India and who has treated patients, told The Hindu that the person is now fine, throwing the question at the SII. "He is recovering very well and we are treating him according to protocol and he even came back for follow-up. All expenses are borne by the hospital," he said.

Meanwhile, Head of Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases, ICMR, Samiran Panda said there was no direct cause for concern at this final stage of testing the COVID-19 vaccine. However, this does not mean that long-term assessments will not occur.

"There is no immediate cause for concern at this stage. This does not mean that a long-term assessment will not occur. I know its activities," said Panda as quoted by Aljazeera.

Meanwhile, the SII in their statement also responded that the allegations in the notification were dangerous and misunderstood. "Although the Serum Institute of India sympathizes with the volunteers' medical condition, there is absolutely no correlation with the vaccine trial. The volunteer mistakenly blames his health problems on the COVID vaccine trial," said SII.

Currently, COVID-19 cases in India, according to Worldometer data, have reached 9.4 million cases. While people who died from this disease reached 137,185 people.